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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

Class 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/firstyearatstanfOOstanrich 


^     OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


be  first 

Vear 

atstanford 


}^f^ 


Sketches  of  Pioneer 
Days  a^  Leland  Stanford 
Junior    University 


^    OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


Stanford    Universi ty,    California 
Published    by    the    English    Club 

/  9  o  5 


l\Q> 


■igbt,  igos 
by  Alice  JVindior  Kimball 
Stanford  University 


Printed  by 
VOit  H^tonkp-Vaplor  Companp 

San  Francisco 


CONTENTS 

Early  Days  of  Stanford 

David  Starr  Jordan       ....  7 

Beginnings  in  Palo  Alto 

Eleanor  Pearson  Bartlett     ...        17 

The  Cornell  Colony  at  Palo  Alto 

Ellen  Coit  Elliott     .....        29 

The  Early  History  of  Athletics  at 
Stanford 
Frank  Angell 48 

Letters  Home 

Charles  Kellogg  Field    ....        68 

Early  Life  at  the  University  Out- 
side THE  Dormitories 
Francis  7.  Batchelder     ....        95 

Notes  on  the  Early  Organizations 
AT  Stanford 
Francis  /.  Batchelder     .      .      .      .      109 

"The  Frenchman" 

B.  S.  Allen 133 

The  San  Francisquito  Rancho 

Roy  P.  Ballard 147 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

At  the  Dedication,  October  i,  1891. 

Frontispiece 

"Escondite  Cottage  .  .  .  was  devoted  to 

the  president"        13 

"Things  were  different  then  at  the  stock 

farm" 17 

"The  boys'  dormitory  was  building"      .        29 

"The  ragged  little  string  of  skeletons  .  . 
out  on  the  .  .  .  plain  south  of  the 
Quadrangle" 34 

"The    long    arcades   were    cluttered  .  .  . 

and  noisy" 38 

"They  erected  a   boathouse  ...  on   the 

shores  of  Lagunita"       ....        64 

Inside  the  Quadrangle,   1891      .      .      .        69 

Looking  toward  the  Quad  from  the  field 

back  of  Roble 77 

Where  the  Quadrangle  was  built       .      .        94 

Building  the  Stanford  Mausoleum     .      .      108 

"The    Frenchman    built    the    picturesque 

brick  tower" 136 


FOREWORD 

^^^fc^HERE  was  need  that  these  articles 
M  ^  J  should  be  written  and  collected  into  a 
^^^X  volume.  College  generations  pass 
but  too  quickly,  and  the  rare  flavor  of  those 
days  of  Stanford's  earliest  life  can  too  easily  be 
lost — not,  perhaps,  to  those  who  shared  the 
experiences,  but  to  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
Stanford's  later  adoption.  And  the  spirit  in 
which  these  days  were  lived  may  have  a  wider 
public  interest,  some  day,  when  the  history  of 
Western  university  life  is  searched  in  quest  of 
its  final  significance. 

Yet  the  papers  we  have  collected  are,  from  a 
larger  viewpoint,  limited  in  scope  and  unam- 
bitious in  treatment;  they  will  in  no  sense  com- 
pete with  the  serious  history  of  Stanford's  be- 
ginnings that  are  still  to  be  written.  But,  perhaps, 
for  this  very  reason  they  may  fulfil  their  own 
purpose  the  better.  And  so,  with  grateful  ap- 
preciation for  the  help  we  have  received  from 
many  quarters,  and  especially  to  those  who 
have  contributed  the  articles  themselves,  we  send 
out  our  little  volume,  dedicated  to  Stanford 
men  and  women  who  share  the  spirit  of  those 
pioneer  days  as  a  common  heritage, — as  well 
those  of  the  generations  to  come,  as  those 
whose  part  in  them  was  immediate  and  per- 
sonal. 


^     OF  THE     "^ 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  STANFORD. 
David  Starr  Jordan. 

IF  I  live  to  be  an  old  man,  I  may  some 
day  write  the  true  story  of  the  open- 
ing years  of  Stanford  University,  in 
the  fashion  in  which  Darwin  wrote  the  story  of 
his  life  for  his  children, — as  though  I  were  an 
inhabitant  of  another  sphere  looking  down  on 
the  affairs  of  this  planet. 

But  I  cannot  do  this  now.*  The  days  of  strug- 
gle are  too  near,  the  long  joint  effort  of  the 
founder,  the  trustees,  and  the  teachers  to  save 
the  noble  endowment  for  its  noble  purpose,  the 
days  of  alternate  hope  and  despair,  the  days  of 
the  sacrifice  of  cherished  ideals  on  the  one  hand 
for  the  sake  of  saving  still  higher  ones  on  the 
other.  All  that  is  still  too  close  to  me,  and  the 
men  and  women  who  took  part  in  it  are  still  too 
near  and  too  dear;  their  work  is  not  yet  com- 
pleted, and  the  story  may  not  be  written.  And 
yet  it  is  a  most  romantic  story, — the  bravest  and 
most  inspiring  in  the  history  of  education,  and  it 
has  in  it  one  clear,  dominant  note,  one  motif y  the 
loyalty  of  a  woman  to  the  memory  of  her  hus- 
band and  her  son,  her  devotion  to  the  lofty  ideals 

♦  November,  1904. 


8         THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

of  helpfulness  which  were  the  flower  and  fruit- 
age of  a  vigorous  life. 

I  first  heard  of  the  Stanford  University 
through  the  newspapers,  from  the  notices  half 
laudatory,  half  contemptuous,  with  which  the 
American  press  welcomes  every  new  project.  A 
colored  engraving  of  the  proposed  buildings  at- 
tracted my  attention,  as  also  the  rumors  that 
Huxley,  Bryce,  and  others  of  equal  note  had 
been  tendered  the  presidency  or  its  professor- 
ships. 

Perhaps  my  own  name  was  first  connected 
with  it  in  1888.  In  the  Yellowstone  Park,  Cap- 
tain Boutelle,  the  commandant,  was  talking  of 
Senator  Stanford's  plans.  With  the  cheerful  ir- 
responsibility of  an  outsider,  I  told  the  Captain 
what  I  would  do  if  I  were  in  charge  of  a  new 
university.  "If  you  had  charge  of  it,  I  would 
send  my  son  there,"  said  the  Captain.  He  was 
as  good  as  his  word.  At  the  opening,  in  1891, 
Harry  Boutelle  was  there,  one  of  the  pioneers. 
He  was  a  fine,  brave  lad,  one  of  the  two  Stan- 
ford boys  who  fell  in  the  Philippines, — two  out 
of  the  eighty-four  who  enlisted  in  1897.    ' 

I  was  chosen  president  in  1891,  mainly  on  the 
advice  of  President  White.     I  had  never  met 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  STANFORD  9 

Governor  Stanford  until  he  came  to  the  Univer- 
sity of  Indiana  to  see  me  on  the  twentieth  of 
March,  1891.  He  set  forth  his  plans,  his  ideals 
in  education,  and  his  preparations  for  carrying 
them  out.  It  was  plain  from  the  first  that  he 
was  thoroughly  in  earnest,  his  wife  equally  so, 
and  that  he  meant  just  what  he  said. 

And  so  we  began  to  choose  the  faculty  and  to 
get  ready  for  the  opening  on  October  ist. 

At  first  fifteen  men  were  to  be  appointed  as 
teachers, — young  men  with  their  careers  before 
them.  They  would  suffice  for  the  hundred  or 
so  freshmen  we  might  expect,  with  the  scattering 
advanced  students  who  would  follow  the  pro- 
fessors. No  one  encouraged  us  to  look  for  more. 
The  New  York  Mail  and  Express,  for  example, 
had  an  editorial  on  the  folly  of  establishing  an- 
other university  in  California.  "It  is  about  as 
much  needed,"  it  declared,  "as  an  asylum  for 
decayed  sea-captains  is  needed  in  Switzerland. 
The  professors  for  years  will  lecture  in  marble 
halls  to  empty  benches."  Our  colleagues  at 
Berkeley  were  most  cordial,  but  they  took  the 
same  gloomy  view  of  the  outlook.  There  were 
400  students  only  at  the  State  University,  and 
the  prospect  of  dividing  this  squad  into  two  rival 


lo       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

squadrons  was  not  exhilarating.  But,  strange  to 
say,  it  did  not  work  that  way.  On  the  opening 
day  465  students  from  everywhere  the  world 
over  gathered  at  Palo  Alto,  and  the  number  at 
Berkeley  was  larger  than  ever  before.  And  this 
relation  has  gone  on  with  the  growth  of  both  in- 
stitutions. Whatever  has  made  either  better, 
has  given  a  higher  value  to  college  education  and 
has  correspondingly  strengthened  the  other. 
Now  the  pressure  of  higher  education  to  the 
square  inch  is  greater  in  California  than  in  any 
other  State.  And  still  the  students  at  Stanford 
come  from  anywhere  and  everywhere,  and  when 
they  graduate  they  scatter  out  over  the  whole 
world. 

The  first  need  of  the  new  University  was 
clearly  a  secretary,  for  the  correspondence  after 
the  second  day,  was  literally  enormous.  As  the 
secretary  to  President  White,  always  accurate, 
quiet,  cautious,  and  courageous,  I  had  known 
O.  L.  Elliott  of  Cornell,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  he  was  the  man.  In  two 
days  he  was  on  the  ground,  and  then  we 
began  the  search  for  the  fifteen  who  should  first 
bear  the  banner  of  education  on  the  Palo  Alto 
farm.  "Jack"  Branner,  the  most  eminent  of  the 
younger  geologists,  a  man  I  had  long  known  and 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  STANFORD  ii 

trusted,  was  naturally  called  to  look  after  Geol- 
ogy and  Mining.  The  number  of  fifteen  was 
raised  to  twenty.  These  were  Anderson,  in  Eng- 
lish, an  old  Cornell  friend,  called  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Iowa;  Gilbert,  Swain  and  Jenkins, 
former  students,  called  from  the  University  of 
Indiana,  In  Zoology,  Mathematics  and  Physi- 
ology; Campbell,  in  Botany,  a  Michigan  man, 
then  in  the  University  of  Indiana;  Howard  of 
Nebraska,  in  History.  Todd,  In  French,  was 
drawn  from  Johns  Hopkins;  Griffin,  In  German, 
Laird,  in  Greek,  and  Barnes,  In  Education,  from 
Cornell.  Woodruff,  another  Cornell  man,  then 
in  charge  of  the  Fiske  Library  in  Florence,  was 
placed  in  charge  of  the  new  library.  A  Cornell 
man,  Marx,  formerly  assistant  professor  In  Cor- 
nell and  at  the  time  professor  in  Wisconsin,  was 
chosen  in  Civil  Engineering,  and  Gale  of  St. 
Louis,  a  graduate  of  the  Institute  of  Technology, 
In  Mechanical  Engineering.  Pease  was  called 
from  Bowdoin  to  the  chair  of  Latin;  Sanford,  a 
student  of  Helmholtz,  from  Lake  Forest  to  the 
chair  of  Physics.  In  Chemistry  the  work  was 
begun  by  Richardson,  a  student  of  Remsen  of 
Johns  Hopkins,  then  instructor  In  Lehigh.  Wood 
from  Oberlin  and  Harvard,  In  Physical  Train- 


1 2       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

ing;  W.  H.  Miller  from  Johns  Hopkins,  and  J. 
A.  Miller  from  Indiana  in  Mathematics  com- 
pleted the  list  of  men  present  as  teachers  at  the 
beginning.  Of  these  men,  Branner,  Marx,  Gil- 
bert, Campbell,  Sanford,  Jenkins,  Anderson  and 
Griffin  are  still  with  us.  William  Howard  Mil- 
ler, "First  Dead  of  Stanford's  Scholars,"  as  he 
was  termed  in  a  fine  sonnet  by  Prof.  Sampson, 
did  not  live  through  the  year ;  Richardson,  sanest 
and  most  sagacious  of  teachers,  died  in  1902; 
Todd  was  soon  called  to  Columbia;  Swain  be- 
came, in  1893,  President  of  the  University  of 
Indiana  and  later  president  of  Swarthmore  Col- 
lege ;  Laird  was  soon  called  to  Wisconsin  ,Wood 
to  Columbia,  and  J.  A.  Miller  to  a  full  profes- 
sorship in  Indiana;  while  Woodruf  became  pro- 
fessor of  law  at  Cornell. 

As  soon  as  the  University  opened  more  men 
were  plainly  needed.  M.  W.  Sampson,  A.  G. 
Newcomer  and  E.  H.  Griggs  were  called  as  as- 
sistants in  English,  Sampson  fortunately  in  time 
to  coach  the  first  football  team  and  to  write  the 
first  football  song  relating  how  "Kennedy  kicked 
the  goal."  Amos  G.  Warner,  of  Nebraska,  one 
of  the  noblest  and  most  gifted  of  men,  filled  the 
chair  of  Economics  until  his  lamented  death  in 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  STANFORD  13 

1900.  B.  C.  Brown  came  from  Cornell  to  teach 
Free-hand  Drawing,  and  at  Christmas  time 
John  M.  Stillman  came  from  Boston  to  be  Se- 
nior Professor  of  Chemistry.  Elliott  was  made 
registrar  and  G.  A.  Clark,  a  student  stenogra- 
pher, rose  in  time  to  occupy  his  place  as  sec- 
retary. 

In  June  the  faculty  appeared  on  the  grounds. 
Escondite  Cottage,  the  only  house  available  on 
the  grounds  (and  there  was  no  town  of  Palo 
Alto) ,  was  devoted  to  the  president.  Here  lived 
also  the  Elliotts,  and  the  first  entrance  examina- 
tion was  held  on  the  veranda  at  Escondite. 
Three  students  applied ;  one  girl.  Miss  Longley, 
passed,  but  the  two  young  men  failed.  The  first 
student  enrolled,  F.  J.  Batchelder,  came  from 
Cornell  as  stenographer  to  Dr.  Elliott.  After 
ten  years'  experience  in  practical  life  he  returned 
to  college  in  1903,  taking  his  degree  in  Civil 
Engineering  in  1904. 

Richardson,  who  came  out  with  the  president 
and  the  Elliotts,  lived  in  Menlo  Park,  and  here 
one  after  another  came  the  rest,  Swain,  Marx, 
San  ford,  Gilbert,  Anderson,  and  their  families, 
the  new  houses  on  the  campus  being  ready  lit- 
tle before  the  opening  of  the  college  year. 


14       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

In  the  winter  of  1892,  President  White  came 
from  Cornell  with  his  course  of  lectures  on  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  Comstocks  glad- 
dened all  hearts  by  their  courses  in  Nature  Study 
and  their  social  evenings  at  home. 

It  was  intended  at  first  to  admit  only  men  un- 
til the  projected  large  halls  for  girls  should  be 
completed.  But  the  fear  that  if  girls  came  in 
later  than  the  boys  they  would  be  called  inter- 
lopers was  reason  for  preparing  for  both  at  the 
same  time.  Roble  Hall  was  planned  in  June 
and  hastened  to  completion  in  September.  It 
was  filled  with  girls  before  the  plaster  was  out 
of  the  halls  or  the  furniture  in  the  kitchen. 

It  was  Mr.  Stanford's  thought  that  the  new 
institution  should  be  highly  specialized.  It 
should  have  the  noble  provision  for  technical 
education  characteristic  of  Cornell,  and  the  en- 
couragement to  advanced  study  and  research 
characteristic  of  Johns  Hopkins.  Its  aim  should 
be  to  fit  men  for  usefulness  in  life,  and  for  this 
an  unspecialized  general  training  would  not  suf- 
fice. He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  use  of  the 
college  as  a  group  of  social  clubs,  nor  did  he 
wish  to  train  gentlemen  of  leisure.  A  Stan- 
ford man  should  be  one  who  knows  something 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  STANFORD 


15 


thoroughly  and  can  carry  his  knowledge  into  ac- 
tion. The  principles  of  democracy  were  to  per- 
meate the  whole  institution.  There  should  be 
democracy  of  men,  democracy  of  studies,  de- 
mocracy in  courses  of  study.  The  work,  not  the 
degree,  should  be  the  goal  of  effort.  ^^Die  Luft 
der  Freiheit  wehty — "the  winds  of  freedom 
are  blowing," — this  word  of  Ulrich  von  Hut- 
ten  quoted  in  some  early  address,  and  caught  up 
as  a  motto  by  the  students,  found  favor  with 
him  as  with  the  rest  of  us.  He  asked  that  on 
the  register  we  should  print  these  phrases : 

"The  Beneficence  of  the  Creator  towards  Man  on 
Earth,  and  the  possibilities  of  Humanity,  are  one  and 
the  same." 

"A  generous  Education  is  the  Birthright  of  every 
man  and  woman  in  America." 

But  we  should  be  glad  to  substitute  for  these 
the  sentence  which  marked  the  foundation  of  the 
University.  After  a  sad  night  of  doubt  and  dis- 
tress after  the  death  of  his  son,  Mr.  Stanford 
awoke  with  these  words  on  his  lips: 

"The  Children  of  California  shall  be  my  Children." 
And  so  they  are ! 

In  1892  came  Albert  W.  Smith,  Angell, 
Fliigel,    Murray,    Dudley,    Matzke,   Thobum, 


i6       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 


Ho8kins»  Wing,  KcOoegi  ADbunfice.  Gocfad,  « 
Hudson.  Lenox,  Shopw,  A.  B.  Cbik,  Fish.  G.  I^i 
Marx,  J.  P.  Smitii.  Pkioc,  McFailaind.  ^um^tM 
ton  and  odicrs»  donblii^  die  of^jinal  nmnbcr  in 
the  fiaadtj.  Since  tfacn  many  lix¥e  come  and 
gone,  and  othcis.  still  better,  have  oame  to  stay. 
The  ahnnni  ndl  in  the  hxsAtf  has  aiiscn  mdl 
c^  die  115  in  all,  thiity4wo  axe  Stanfofd  men. 
When  President  Efiot:  ^loke  at  Stanfofd.  in 
1892,  it  was  the  Stanfc»d  boast  that  it  was  the 
on^  oJl^e  which  had  '"Soever  giadaated  a  man 
of  irfiom  it  was  ashamed.**  The  ahnnm  ttSL  of 
twentfHtune,  in  1892,  has  aiisen  to  1,912,  in  the 
year  1904;  Stanford  afammi  are  scattered  the 
wodd  owr;  I  meet  them  in  all  conditions  in  fife, 
hot  of  them  all  there  are  not  half  a  dozen  the 
Afana  Mater  docs  not  fed  proud  to  daim.  The 
Stanford  man  b  a  type  of  his  own;  fcariess.  dem- 
ocratic; sdf-confidcnt.  He  beficics  in  tinth,  he 
befievcs  in  himsdf ,  and  everywhere  and  always. 

he  b  loyal  to  Stanford. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

£alifor!^ 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO. 
Eleanor  Pearson  Bartlett. 

CHE  first  impression  I  got  of  pioneer 
Palo  Alto,  or  rather  Menlo  Park,  for 
Palo  Alto  at  that  time  was  nothing  but 
a  yellow  wheat  field,  with  shadowy  traces  of  real 
estate  roads  on  it,  was  its  expansiveness.  We 
were  set  down  on  the  Menlo  Park  Station  plat- 
form in  the  blazing  sun  and  dust  of  a  midsum- 
mer day  and  then  charged  $2.50  by  Jasper  Paul- 
sen to  be  taken  in  his  jolting  little  car  to  Dr. 
Jordan's  house,  then  Escondite  Cottage,  "and  it 
would  have  been  $3.00  if  you  didn't  sort  of  be- 
long to  the  faculty,"  said  he.  Jasper  after- 
wards had  a  large  and  flourishing  livery  stable 
in  Palo  Alto,  the  predecessor  of  whichever  one 
at  the  present  moment  isn't  Bell's,  and  he  al- 
ways stood  our  friend,  because,  "You  were  the 
very  first  ones  to  ride  in  my  car."  Whenever 
he  got  a  new  surrey  or  span,  up  it  came  to  Cas- 
tilleja  for  us  to  try. 

"We"  were  Miss  Fletcher  and  I,  and  we'd 
come  to  start  a  girls'  preparatory  school  under 
Dr.  Jordan's  protecting  wing.  But  where  should 
we  start  it?     It  was  August  ist  then,  and  the 


1 8       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

college  was  to  open  In  September.  There  was 
no  college  town,  the  *'road"  consisted  of  eight 
or  ten  frames  of  houses  not  yet  even  boarded  in, 
and  the  surprised  faculty  that  kept  dribbling  out 
from  the  East  in  altogether  too  punctual  a  fash- 
ion, were  sadly  seeking  homes  in  San  Jose,  San 
Francisco,  the  Menlo  Park  Hotel,  and  even 
Mayfield.  Where  should  we  go?  There  was 
just  one  chance, — Adelante  Villa,  the  tumbled- 
to-pieces,  ghost-haunted,  much  be-cypressed 
spot,  where  the  dense  rose-vines  kept  out  all  sun, 
and  never  a  glimpse  of  hills  or  yellow  fields 
could  you  get,  where  the  old  flower-beds  were 
choked  with  weeds,  and  the  furniture  fell  to 
pieces  as  you  sat  on  it,  from  very  despair,  and 
the  lofty,  old-fashioned  rooms  struggled  to  keep 
warm  with  tiny  grates,  and  coal  $13  a  ton, 
hauled  from  Redwood. 

Well,  there  we  went  on  Wednesday,  and  by 
Friday  we  had  a  flourishing  boarding  house 
pending  the  opening  of  school,  for  all  we  could 
take  flocked  to  us,  even  if  we  didn't  have 
any  blankets  for  several  days,  and  only  eggs 
and  potatoes  to  eat.  There  were  President 
Swain,  of  Indiana, — a  big,  hearty  man,  who 
was    enough    to    make    even    mathematics    a 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO  19 

popular  department  for  a  year,  and  Professor 
Anderson — I  can  see  him  now,  stalking  back 
over  those  baked  fields  every  afternoon  in  his 
shirt  sleeves — and  two  raw  boys  from  Oregon, 
who  had  to  be  tutored  for  their  entrance  exam- 
inations— one  of  them  was  named  Hoover,  and 
youVe  all  of  you  heard  of  him  since,  and  the 
college  stenographer,  and  as  many  more  as  we 
could  cram  in.  The  first  thing  we  did  was  to 
buy  "Jim."  You  knew  him  later,  I'm  sure,  as  he 
jogged  sedately  up  the  avenue,  with  Professor 
David  Marx  humming  classic  melodies  behind; 
but  then  he  was  a  spirited  young  thing,  tried  first 
by  Dr.  Jordan  and  found  wanting,  and  every 
day  I  drove  him  in  to  the  University  through  the 
stock  farm.  But  the  stock  farm!  I  must  stop 
a  minute  to  dwell  on  the  past  glories  of  the 
place, — so  busy  and  gay  and  immaculately  clean, 
with  the  little  colts  trotting  round  in  the  kinder- 
garten, and  the  blanketed  trotters  being  walked 
up  and  down,  and  the  Chinamen  sweeping  up 
every  shred  of  eucalyptus  bark,  and  keeping  the 
trees  whitewashed,  and  the  Senator  himself  rol- 
ling round  on  his  tours  of  inspection  every  morn- 
ing in  his  red-wheeled  chariot.  Oh,  things  were 
different  then! 


20       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  ATS  TAN  FORD 

And  they  were  different,  too,  when  you  got  to 
the  University.  You  all  know  that  only  the 
Inner  Quadrangle  was  up,  with  one  or  two  of  the 
shops  and  the  chimney,  the  chimney  whose  glory 
is  now  downed  forever  by  the  arch  and  the 
church.  But  imagine  no  Row — to  say  nothing 
of  rows — except  the  embryonic  skeletons  IVe 
mentioned,  and  no  roads  or  lawns.  The  main 
avenue  was  just  being  built.  Sometimes  I  could 
guide  Jim  down  its  dusty  length,  full  of  pitfalls, 
and  dirt-wagons,  and  find  the  gate  at  the  end 
unlocked;  but  oftener  I'd  have  to  turn  back, 
braving  the  dangers  of  driving  up,  over,  and 
down  the  banks  of  earth  that  were  going  to 
make  the  curved  roads  around  the  lawns,  try 
the  outlet  by  the  winery,  and  through  the  pri- 
vate grounds  to  the  gate  by  the  bridge,  only  to 
find  It  locked,  too.  If  the  Stanfords  didn't  hap- 
pen to  be  "in  residence"  that  day,  and  be  obliged 
to  turn  Jim  around  once  more,  and  thread  my 
way  again  among  gravel  heaps  and  rollers,  and 
piles  of  crushed  rock,  back  past  the  row  and  out 
finally  to  Mayfield  by  the  Escondite  Gate,  which 
wasn't  locked  in  those  days.  For  out  I  had  to 
get  by  some  way  or  other,  as  all  the  marketing 
had  to  be  done ;  our  washwoman  lived  at  Menlo 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO  21 

Park  and  our  grocer  at  Mayfield.  And  here  I 
must  stop  again  to  pay  a  tribute  to  Mr.  La 
Peire.  He  stood  by  us  all  in  those  days;  may 
the  faculty  continue  to  stand  by  him  always.  No 
trouble  was  too  much  for  him  to  take,  no  errand 
too  weary,  no  bill  too  long  for  him  to  carry  over 
when  the  dark  days  of  the  second  summer  came, 
just  after  the  Senator's  death,  and  no  money  was 
forthcoming. 

When  I  wasn't  steering  Jim  through  these 
mazes,  I  was  sitting  in  the  college  office,  wait- 
ing for  business.  I  had  the  desk  that  Mr. 
Clark  has  now,  and  very  funny  things  happened 
in  the  office  in  those  days;  but  they  are  not  for 
me  to  tell.  My  own  particular  job  was  hard 
enough, — to  get  out  of  parents'  heads  the  idea 
that  our  school  was  an  integral  part  of  the  Uni- 
versity and  therefore  free,  which  wasn't  exactly 
our  idea  of  it!  But  it  wasn't  strange  they 
thought  so,  for  the  newspapers  had  filled  the 
land  with  stories  of  a  fairy  spot  where  education 
was  to  be  had  free,  from  the  kindergarten  to  the 
grave. 

Well,  September  came  and  we  turned  out  our 
boarders  and  began  school,  two  weeks  before 
the  University.  Over  the  trials  of  that  first  year, 


22       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

I  must  draw  a  decorous  veil,  for  the  actors 
haven^t  yet  sunk  back  far  enough  into  the  mel- 
lowing haze.  It  would  all  be  very  amusing, 
but  too  personal.  But  one  thing  I  know  the 
English  Club  will  be  interested  in.  All  our  pu- 
pils but  two  left  at  Christmas,  and  the  reason 
the  best  one  of  them  assigned  was  that  she  was 
getting  intolerably  poor  instruction  in  English. 
A  strictly  impersonal  difficulty  that  can  be 
mentioned  was  the  ghost.  We  were  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  she  "went  with  the  place,"  when  we 
took  it,  but  not  so  our  Spanish  neighbors  or  our 
Mayfield  day  scholars,  and  so  it  gradually 
leaked  out,  and  you  know  what  that  would  mean 
in  a  family  of  girls,  especially  when  one  of  them 
found  she  had  been  guilty  of  fiddling  every  day 
right  on  top  of  the  gra^e.  You  see  Mr.  Stan- 
ford had  bought  Adelante  from  Judge  C , 

a  San  Francisco  lawyer,  who  used  it  for  a  sum- 
mer place.     Now   Mrs.    C ,   who  was   an 

invalid,  loved  the  place,  and  as  she  grew  worse 
and  knew  that  that  summer  she  could  never 
leave  it  again  alive,  she  begged  from  her  hus- 
band that  she  might  not  have  to  leave  it,  dead. 
And  he  promised  her  that  she  should  be  buried 
beneath  a  certain  live  oak  that  she'd  loved  to  sit 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO  23 

under  when  she  was  stronger.  And  he  kept  his 
promise,  and  planted  a  little  cypress  hedge 
around  the  grave  and  tended  it  with  care.  But 
a  few  years  later  he  married  again,  and  the  sec- 
ond Mrs.  C^ and  her  young  lady  daughters 

hated  the  sight  of  that  little  hedge  from  their 
library  windows,  and  persuaded  him  to  cut  it 
down  and  pile  it  on  the  grave  and  burn  it.  And 
the  grave  fell  in!  And  then  the  place  got  more  and 
more  lonesome  and  eerie,  till  they  finally  coaxed 
the  old  man  to  sell  it  and  move  away.  But  the 
body  of  the  wife  was  left  there  to  be  forgotten. 
And  with  that  the  ghost  began  to  walk,  and  she 
haunted  the  house  and  lightly  swept  through  the 
halls  and  up  and  down  the  third-story  staircase 
with  its  little  gate  across  the  top  that  showed 
where  the  nursery  had  been.  And  that  was  a 
very  easy  house  to  hear  ghosts  in,  anyway,  what 
with  rats  so  daring  that  they  raced  from  one  end 
to  the  other  at  night  and  deposited  bunches  of 
grapes  from  the  pantry  all  over  the  second  story, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  big  mastiff  who  groaned  at 
night  and  slept  indoors. 

Well,  the  end  of  the  year  came,  and  it  was 
evident  that  if  we  were  to  keep  the  school  going 
at  all,  we  must  find  some  other  place  for  it.    So 


24       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

we  made  up  our  minds  to  build.  But  where? 
There  were  three  candidates  for  the  site  of  the 
college  town,  all  of  them  nothing  but  wheat 
fields  crossed  by  roads  that  were  only  rough  lit- 
tle adobe  tracks,  but  were  labeled  with  high- 
sounding  literary  names.  In  each  of  these  one 
or  two  cheap  houses  had  been  put  up,  and  that 
was  all.  Now,  which  of  these  three  was  to  be 
the  town?  First,  there  was  Palo  Alto  Park,  as 
they  called  it  then ;  at  any  rate  that  was  near  the 
railroad  and  boasted  a  flag-station  and  a  little 
platform.  Then  there  was  College  Terrace; 
that  was  near  Mayfield,  a  very  important  con- 
sideration when  keeping  house  must  be  consid- 
ered. Lastly,  there  was  University  Heights,  by 
far  the  most  attractive  of  the  three,  topographic- 
ally speaking.  I  suppose  that  most  of  you  have 
never  heard  of  it.  If  you  go  back  to  the  hills 
over  the  old  county  road,  across  the  footbridge 
and  past  Cedro  Cottage,  and  then  turn  to  your 
right  on  the  county  road,  you'll  soon  see  off  to 
the  left  traces  of  real  estate  roads  running  across 
some  fine  rolling  country  with  beautiful  white 
oaks  scattered  sparsely  over  it,  and  in  one  place 
a  group  of  pathetic,  ramshackly  houses  (unless 
they've  been  repaired  since  I  came  away) ,  where 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO  25 

three  or  four*  hopeful  but  hasty  families  had 
built,  trusting  in  the  University,  that  fabulous 
gold  mine  in  the  early  days,  which  was  believed 
to  stand  ready  to  hand  out  education,  places, 
money,  fairy  chances  of  all  kinds,  with  a  real 
fairy  godfather  and  godmother  standing  ready 
to  wave  the  wand  for  every  Cinderella  and  hand 
out  a  ring  for  every  Aladdin.  You  cannot,  any 
of  you,  imagine  the  rosy  mist  that  floats  around 
it  all  in  those  magic  two  years  before  the  Sena- 
tor died. 

Well,  by  great  good  luck,  we  decided  on 
Palo  Alto  Park  and  planned  that  summer  to  put 
up  Castilleja  Hall  there,  the  same  building  that, 
altered  several  times,  still  serves  as  the  Harker 
and  Hughes  School.  The  next  question  was 
what  part  of  the  wheat  field  was  going  to  be 
"the  choice  residence  section."  In  this  we  were 
guided  partly  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Hutchinson 
had  just  put  up  his  house  in  the  southwest  corner, 
so  we  built  close  by  and  never  regretted  it, 
especially  when  the  next  year  Professor  Marx 
and  Professor  Smith  came  to  share  our  block. 

But  Palo  Alto  that  first  year  was  a  pioneer 
settlement,  indeed.  If  I  remember  rightly, 
"down  town''  consisted  of  Parkinson's  lumber 


2  6       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

yard,  with  a  tiny  shanty  for  postoffice  at  one 
corner,  Mrs.  Yale's  little  thread-and-needle  shop 
and  Simpkin's  little  store.  The  Sunday-school 
assembled  on  benches  under  the  big  oaks  by  the 
station,  and  for  week-days  the  dozen  or  less  chil- 
dren went  bumping  over  to  Mayfield,  driven  by 
Theodore  Zschokke  in  his  old  express  wagon. 

But  my  chief  recollection  is  of  the  roads.  You 
know  what  they  are  now,  especially  on  the  out- 
skirts, but  then !  One  dreary  stretch  of  dust  in 
the  summer,  and  an  unending  chain  of  black 
mud  holes  in  winter,  with  no  sidewalks  at  all. 
The  first  sidewalk  we  had  was  constructed  by 
voluntary  subscriptions  on  the  part  of  the  prop- 
erty owners,  and  ran  up  Waverly  Street,  with  a 
side  branch  off  to  us.  Occasionally  an  absentee 
owner  refused  to  pay,  and  it  ambled  across  the 
street  to  some  more  public-spirited  person  on  the 
other  side,  only  to  return  a  few  yards  farther  on. 
It  was  a  simple  affair,  just  two  planks  following 
all  the  natural  ups  and  downs,  just  too  narrow 
for  two  persons,  except  under  exceptional  cir- 
cumstances. I  think  all  of  us  remember  that 
walk,  for  it  trained  us  to  such  expert  wheel-rid- 
ing. It  was  quite  a  feat  to  get  from  one  end  to 
the  other,  without  succumbing  to  the  mud  on 


BEGINNINGS  IN  PALO  ALTO  27 

either  side,  or  to  the  crack  that  yawned  fear- 
fully between.  But  the  dismal  state  of  the  roads 
was  compensated  for,  as  far  as  beauty  went,  by 
the  trees  that  still  shaded  them. 

Practically,  perhaps,  they  did  need  to  go.  You 
felt  more  nearly  inclined  to  admit  that  fact 
when  you  threaded  your  way  In  and  out  between 
them  in  a  bus  on  a  dark  night,  or  rather  had  it 
threaded  for  you  by  a  careless  driver,  especially 
if  you  found  yourself  brought  to  a  sudden  stop 
by  the  end  of  the  pole's  suddenly  butting  into 
an  oak.  But  still  they  were  lovely  to  look  on 
and  preserved  the  town  from  absolute  common- 
placeness,  and  I  don't  wonder  that  Professor 
Angell  and  Professor  Murray  made  such  strenu- 
ous exertions  that  they  managed  to  keep  the  beau- 
tiful live  oak  in  front  of  their  houses. 

I'm  afraid  all  the  memory  of  the  rest  of  our 
first  year  in  Palo  Alto  is  too  turbid  for  me  to 
fish  up  anything  else  profitable  from  it.  We 
were  too  busy  with  school  to  pay  much  attention 
to  the  town;  and  those  were  difficult  days  to 
keep  a  school  in,  especially  when  the  months  of 
calm  came,  and  the  windmills  all  stood  still  for 
weeks,  and  there  were  no  water  works.  The  one 
person  who  can  tell  you  all  about  these  times  18 


28       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Mrs.  Zschokke,  who  mothered  and  even  fath- 
ered the  infant  town,  and  did  more  for  it  than 
all  its  trustees.  By  the  end  of  the  year,  we  had 
a  miraculous  growth  of  houses  springing  up 
everjrwhere,  and  a  new  postoffice,  and  a  roof  on 
the  railroad  station,  and  even  talk  of  a  tem- 
porary shanty  for  a  public  school.  The  pioneer 
days  were  over. 


'^     OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  AT  PALO 
ALTO.* 

Ellen  Coit  Elliott. 

CHE  numerous  members  of  the  Stanford 
Faculty  who  hall  from  other  colleges 
will  hardly  dispute  the  above  desig- 
nation as  applied  to  the  teaching  force  of  the 
new  University,  for  they  have  been  bored  to 
the  verge  of  distraction  by  the  rampant  loyalty 
of  the  Cornell  members;  and,  in  view  of  the  pre- 
dominating tone,  must  have  long  ago  surren- 
dered any  private  enthusiasms  of  their  own.  The 
Registrar  confesses  that  he  has  told  how  they  do 
at  Cornell  until  he  blushes  at  the  sound  of  his 
own  voice  in  that  connection.  The  Librarian's 
dramatic  transports  over  "Ithaca,  my  Ithaca," 
breathe  the  passion  of  the  exile.  His  chief  vic- 
tim for  some  time  was  a  colleague,  fellow- 
boarder  at  the  Oak  Grove  Villa  Hotel  of  Menlo 


*  This  sketch  was  written  in  November,  1891,  for  the 
Cornell  public,  and  was  published  in  the  "Cornell  Maga- 
zine." With  a  slight  revision  it  has  been  left  in  the  main 
in  its  original  form  because  it  gives  an  idea  of  the  early 
connection  between  Stanford  and  Cornell — a  sentiment 
which,  with  changes  of  personnel  and  lapse  of  time,  has 
largely  faded  out,  but  which  was  a  real  and  picturesque 
element  of  "pioneer  days" 


30       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Park.  This  gentleman,  being  from  Boston, 
scarce  knew  of  Ithaca's  existence,  and  when 
these  vials  of  eloquence  were  opened,  it  was  amus- 
ingly evident  that  his  expression  of  well-bred 
resignation  covered  a  wild  desire  to  flee  away 
and  be  at  rest. 

The  Professor  of  German,  the  Professor  of 
Pedagogy,  the  Professor  of  Civil  Engineering, 
the  youthful  representative  of  the  Greek  depart- 
ment, even  the  President  himself  when  discretion 
allows — these  and  many  more  chant  a  constant 
chorus  in  praise  of  the  foster  mother  left  behind. 
The  home  college  has  shown,  too,  a  gracious 
and  curious  interest  in  us.  When  our  apprecia- 
tion takes  the  form  of  golden  beckonings  across 
country.  Alma  Mater  lifts  her  eyebrows  in  some 
wonder  to  see  the  alacrity  with  which  the  chil- 
dren drop  their  toys  and  follow  our  Pied  Piper 
gaily  into  the  untried  West.  The  charm  of  a 
magic  pipe,  the  power  of  a  glamour,  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  pioneer — who  can  explain  ?  We  can 
only  tell  you,  Foster  Mother,  in  sober  words, 
some  little  of  how  it  is  out  here,  and  at  the  end 
you  will  wonder  still,  for  only  by  actual  touch  of 
it  comes  understanding. 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  31 

The  first  to  arrive — long,  long  ago,  as  far 
back  as  the  first  of  July — were  the  President,  the 
Registrar,  and  the  Professor  of  Chemistry,  with 
their  families,  they  having  trekked  together 
overland.  What  a  stretch  intervenes  since  then  I 
The  first  of  July  workmen  swarmed  through  the 
buildings  of  the  Quadrangle.  The  boys'  dor- 
mitory was  building ;  the  girls'  dormitory  barely 
begun.  Alvarado  Row,  now  standing  complete 
with  its  ten  professors'  cottages  finished  and  oc- 
cupied, was  then  part  of  an  unbroken  stubble- 
field,  the  plans  for  its  houses  only  just  being 
drawn:  The  sun  was  shining  brassy  and  hot 
out  of  a  metallic  blue  sky,  and  dusty  Califor- 
nians  were  overwhelming  the  newcomers  with 
eulogies  upon  the  climate. 

During  the  journey  from  the  East  an  astound- 
ing mail  had  accumulated  in  the  Menlo  Park 
post-office.  We  stopped  for  it  as  we  drove  from 
the  station  in  Mr.  Stanford's  carryall,  and  the 
men  brought  it  out  by  the  armful  and  stacked  it 
up  on  the  floor  of  the  carriage  to  the  extent  of  a 
bushel  or  two.  Everything  demanded  instant 
answer.  No  offices  being  ready  for  use,  the  li- 
brary of  the  President's  house,  Escondite  Cot- 
tage, was  the  first  work-room  and  later  an  upper 


3  2       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

room  in  a  brick  building  near  by  was  utilized. 
After  three  weeks  the  Registrar's  office  in  the 
Quadrangle  received  the  President,  the  Regis- 
trar, and  the  Stenographer — ^who  had  meantime 
been  imported  from  Cornell.  Here  toiled  the 
vanguard.  They  had  six  roller-top  desks  stand- 
ing around,  but  nothing  else  to  speak  of;  and 
they  were  assisted  in  their  labors  by  the  carpen- 
ters tinkering  at  drawers,  putting  latches  on  the 
doors,  and  interminably  currying  the  woodwork. 
But  the  world  whirls  fast  in  California.  Only 
a  few  days  and  ground  was  broken  for  the  cot- 
tages; a  little  later  and  the  great  road  leading  to 
the  station  was  begun;  concrete  pavements  ap- 
peared in  the  Quadrangle;  the  Museum  grew 
like  a  mushroom;  the  dormitories  approached 
completion.  One  heard  at  last  the  murmur 
of  the  coming  life — like  the  increasing  hum  of 
an  approaching  train.  Piano  agents  came,  de- 
siring to  furnish  the  University  with  their  wares. 
Book-store  agents  looked  over  the  ground  with 
a  view  to  establishing  branches.  Land  agents 
busily  boomed  their  property,  and  one  of  them 
generously  offered  the  Registrar  a  commission 
on  sales  made  through  his  influence.  A  detec- 
tive came  down  to  see  if  it  would  not  pay  him 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  33 

to  establish  himself  upon  the  campus,  so  as  to  be 
handy  if  needed  after  the  students  arrived. 

The  Faculty  was  to  modestly  number  fifteen, 
and  no  more  until  the  need  for  more  became 
apparent;  and  so  many  teachers,  from  Maine  to 
Australia,  wrote  earnestly  desiring!  to  be  in- 
cluded in  this  magic  number,  that  fifteen  times 
fifteen  of  the  very  elect  (to  take  them  at  their 
own  valuation)  could  have  easily  been  added 
to  the  pay-roll  of  the  institution.  The  rumor 
had  gone  forth  that  "Mr.  Stanford's  School" 
was  to  include  all  grades,  "from  the  kinder- 
garten up,"  so,  from  the  kindergarten  up,  they 
came  fatuously  seeking  admission.  California 
remembered  crabbedly  that  the  corner-stone  of 
the  University  was  laid  years  ago,  and  nothing 
had  come  of  it  all  this  time;  so  this  show  of 
beginning  was  regarded  by  many  with  skeptical, 
if  intense,  curiosity.  Some  grumbled  because 
there  was  no  preparatory  department;  some 
criticised  the  architecture;  some  hinted  darkly 
that  the  whole  project  was  only  an:  intricate 
scheme  to  make  more  money  for  "the  Senator." 
Some,  indeed,  welcomed  the  Easterners  with 
hospitality  and  rejoiced  at  the  impulse  which  the 


34       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

new  Institution  had  even  then  begun  to  give  to 
the  schools  In  the  State. 

In  August  the  Faculty  began  to  arrive.  In 
April  they  had  been  told  that  no  houses  were  to 
be  built  at  present,  and  professors  might  find 
homes  In  the  boys'  dormitory.  They  had  accord- 
ingly adjusted  their  minds  to  the  idea  of  board- 
ing, and  selling  or  storing  their  housekeeping 
effects,  came  up  to  the  situation  free  and  light- 
hearted  and — so  to  speak — with  their  hands  in 
their  pockets.  With  surprise  they  learned  that 
by  a  later  ukase  the  doors  of  the  dormitory  were 
closed  to  the  married  estate,  and  further,  with 
dismay,  that  in  Menlo  Park  and  Mayfield  there 
was  no  place  for  the  stranger.  They  tried  to  get 
board  at  these  villages,  they  explored  "the 
Ranch,'*  they  peeped  wistfully  Into  the  clustered 
tents  and  shanties  of  the  workmen  on  the 
Campus,  only  to  realize  finally  that  nobody 
would  have  them  anywhere  for  love  or  money. 
Then,  at  last,  with  drooping  courage,  they 
turned  to  the  only  thing  left,  the  ragged  little 
string  of  skeletons  getting  into  shape  out  on 
the  flat  and  dusty  plain  south  of  the  Quad- 
rangle. Picking  their  way  across  the  adobe — 
blistered  into  cracks  by  the  summer  heat  and 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  35 

drought,  and  sparsely  grown  with  tar-weed 
above  Its  gray  stubble — clambering  across  lum- 
ber piles  and  the  general  litter  of  building,  they 
proceeded  to  make  a  reluctant  choice  of  a  future 
dwelling. 

Truly  it  is  hard  to  tell  why  the  thought  of  a 
year's  boarding  should  have  appeared  so  radiant 
and  have  died  so  hard.  Now  that  we  have  been 
gently  coerced  into  the  places  prepared  for  us 
and  see  the  mountainous  task  of  furnishing  and 
settling  behind  us  Instead  of  before,  we  rejoice 
unfeignedly  to  be  under  roofs  of  our  own. 

About  the  time  the  skeleton  cottages  began  to 
be  clothed  upon,  and  get  their  paint  and  win- 
dows and  front  steps,  the  faculty  wives  began  to 
make  trips  to  San  Francisco  to  shop — for  at  the 
two  adjacent  villages  you  could  buy  little  more 
than  flour  and  pins,  and  It  takes  several  thousand 
different  articles  to  start  a  new  home.  More 
than  once  the  children  were  left  with  their 
learned  fathers  at  home  (that  Is,  In  some  such 
ephemeral  refuge  as  the  "Oak  Grove  Villa 
Hotel,"  at  Menlo,  or  the  hostelry  opposite  to  It, 
which  commanded  our  wonder  because  It  had  a 
Sequoia  gigantea  growing  in  the  corner  of  the 
yard) ,  while  the  mothers  took  the  early  train  to 


36       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

the  city.  A  woman's  memorandum  was  a  truly 
comic  document,  for  in  view  of  the  patient  gen- 
tlemen-nurses left  behind,  one  precious  day  must 
be  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity,  and  we  had  to 
buy  from  rugs  and  ranges  down  to  brooms  and 
mop-pails,  and  clothespins  at  four  dozen  for  "a 
bit.''  A  "bit"  we  naturally  supposed  meant  a 
mere  scrap,  a  contemptible  nothing  of  a  sum — 
say  a  cent — ^but  we  learned  in  these  early  shop- 
ping tours  that  contemptibleness  is  a  relative 
term,  and  a  sum  of  money  which  a  Scotchman 
or  a  New  Englander  treats  with  respectful  con- 
sideration becomes  in  this  country  a  trifle  too 
insignificant  to  be  handed  back  in  change.  "I 
will  take  three-quarters  of  a  yard,"  said  I,  buy- 
ing ribbon.  "You  may  as  well  take  a  yard — you 
will  have  to  pay  for  it  anyway,"  said  the  clerk. 
And  I  took  the  yard,  puzzling  as  I  went  out  to 
decide  which  had  cause  to  blush,  the  clerk  or  L 
October  first — the  date  of  the  opening — drew 
on.  It  was  almost  here  before  the  first  family 
got  into  its  house,  and  while  the  stars  looked  in 
at  the  curtainless  windows,  slept  happily  on  the 
parlor  floor  with  a  sense  of  vast  relief  to  be  at 
last  at  home.    Our  next  neighbors  had  blankets. 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  37 

we  had  mattresses.  We  divided  up  and  achieved 
comfort. 

Our  help  In  settling  was  most  episodical,  for 
there  was  no  one  to  be  had  save  the  occasional 
"working  student,"  who  might  happen  to  inquire 
for  work  at  the  Quadrangle.  He  was  good  as 
far  as  he  went,  but  usually  when  he  was  about 
half  through  moving  a  stove  or  opening  a  pack- 
ing-case, the  hour  for  an  examination  or  an 
appointment  would  arrive  and  he  would  vanish 
away.  Then  the  housewife  would  be  left  to  sit 
upon  the  stairs  and  twiddle  her  thumbs  while 
she  surveyed  the  chaos  and  decided  where  she 
would  have  the  furniture  put  when  providence 
sent  another  boy  along. 

Outwardly  all  bravery,  the  inner  soul  of  the 
pioneer  is  the  theatre  of  mixed  emotions.  We 
confessed  once  In  a  while,  and  oftener  we  felt 
without  confessing,  that  under  that  sky  of  cloud- 
less blue,  as  day  after  day  went  by,  our  hearts 
perversely  yearned  for  the  patter  of  rain,  that 
cactuses  and  palms  and  even  a  Sequoia  gigantea 
in  the  fence  corner  could  not  begin  to  take  the 
place  of  the  little  springing,  running  grass  of  our 
Eastern  love.  The  dust — the  most  perfect  dust 
in  the  universe,  lying  gray  and  powdery  over 


3  8       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

everything — "got  onto  our  nerves,"  and  we 
brazenly  desired  some  old-time  mud,  for  a 
change.  In  view  of  the  ravages  of  the  mosquito 
and  a  hopping  plague  less  freely  mentioned  in 
polite  discourse,  we  murmured  reproachfully 
that  the  half  had  not  been  told.  We  stared 
across  the  road  at  the  line  of  Menlo  Park 
saloons  and  their  fringe  of  doddering  loafers 
day  by  day,  and  thought  with  sinking  heart  of 
certain  trim  elm-shadowed  villages  back  East, 
and  before  the  long  summer  was  over  we  were 
many  a  time  almost  ready  to  hang  our  harps 
upon  the  willows  and  sing  no  more  of  our  great 
undertaking. 

This  was  the  woman's  outlook  while  we 
waited  at  Menlo.  The  men — ^bless  them! — 
marched  stoutly  off  each  morning  over  the  hot 
and  dusty  highway,  swinging  their  lunch  baskets 
and,  for  aught  I  know,  carolling  a  lay  as  they 
went — marched  the  two  miles  to  the  Quad- 
rangle, where  still  the  long  arcades  were  clut- 
tered with  barrels  and  boards  and  noisy  with 
hammer  and  saw.  It  seems  walking  is  not  the 
custom  out  here.  The  Californian  rides  in  his 
coach  or  stays  at  home — and  considering  the 
dust  and  glare  shows  his  sense  thereby.     Our 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  39 

men  could  do  neither,  as  it  happens,  and  so  they 
walked,  and  the  native  population  called  them 
* 'tramp  perfessers."  I  have  heard  that  when 
noon  came,  it  was  a  pretty  sight  to  behold  this 
embryonic  faculty  eating  its  dinner  out  under 
the  arcade,  seated  in  a  row  on  the  curbstone. 
The  lunches  bundled  out  of  the  little  baskets 
aforementioned  were  dreadful  aggregations, 
and  there  never  was  enough,  besides ;  but  be  sure 
a  tiny  bottle  of  sour  wine  was  not  forgotten  by 
the  most  parsimonious  landlady.  This  is  sig- 
nificant, because  most  of  these  poor  scholars  had 
no  taste  for  sour  wine,  and  they  were  glad  to 
have  it  to  barter  for  large  pieces  of  frosted  cake 
brought  by  the  stenographer  from  a  miraculous 
boarding  place,  and  so  escape  starvation.  It  is 
not  claimed  that  the  President  ever  succumbed 
to  this  bribery,  but  we  do  know  that  he  was 
looked  upon  with  envy,  for  he  brought  his  sump- 
tuous lunch  from  his  own  menage — and  ate  it 
contentedly  at  the  point  of  the  jack-knife.  The 
professor  from  Boston  found  it  hard,  and  every 
day  or  so  he  used  to  flee  to  the  city.  He  said  he 
went  on  business,  but  when  the  Librarian  cor- 
nered him,  he  owned  up  that  it  was  "to  get  a  cup 
of  coffee."     However,  this  apparently  innocent 


40       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

practice  nearly  ruined  his  reputation;  for  pres- 
ently, among  bills  for  University  material  sent 
from  the  city  office  to  the  President  for  auditing, 
there  came  one  from  a  San  Francisco  restaurant 
bearing  the  simple  legend: 

'^Leland  Stanford  Jr.  University,  Dr., 
'^To  one  Terrapin  Stew $1.25.'' 

Suspicion  at  once  fastened  upon  the  man  who 
went  to  the  city  "for  coffee,"  and  it  was  only 
with  difficulty  that  he  was  able  to  clear  himself 
of  the  charge  of  carousing  upon  terrapin  stew 
at  the  University's  expense. 

So  passed  the  summer  away.  And  if  you  say 
the  men  were  not  homesick,  even  if  the  women 
were,  I  can  cite  you  one  dialogue  I  overheard 
myself  once  in  the  sad  time  at  the  edge  of  the 
evening.  Two  of  them  were  standing  on  the 
hotel  porch  looking  dispiritedly  through  the  twi- 
light at  the  train  across  the  road  noisily  getting 
ready  to  start  for  San  Francisco.    Said  one: 

"Let's  get  on  board  and  go  home!  " 

And  the  other  responded  with  alacrity: 

"Any  moment  you  please !  " 

But  when,  in  September,  the  rest  of  the 
Faculty  began  to  come  in  rapidly;  when  the 
Quadrangle  buildings  one  by  one  grew  silent  and 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  41 

the  workmen  disappeared;  when  registration 
day  approached,  then  such  excrescent  regret  as 
there  was  died  forgotten  and  all  work  and  inter- 
est rushed  forward  to  the  opening. 

The  people  of  the  State  were  at  last  convinced 
that  the  University  meant  to  begin  in  earnest  on 
October  ist.  They,  too,  awaited  that  date  with 
eagerness,  and,  when  it  arrived,  they  came  in 
force  to  "see  the  wheels  go  round.''  Report 
affirmed  that  "in  the  early  morning  the  streets 
of  San  Jose  and  Santa  Clara  were  alive  with 
vehicles  carrying  people  to  Palo  Alto."  This 
has,  perhaps,  a  slightly  mythical  sound;  but  sure 
it  is  that  crowds  poured  into  "the  ranch" 
long  before  the  exercises  began,  and  carriages 
were  tied  to  every  available  post,  and  bar, 
and  fence,  and  tree.  Trains  ran  up  to  the 
buildings  on  the  freight  switch  and  unloaded 
other  crowds.  Every  one  pressed  into  the 
"great  bright  Quadrangle,"  and  massed  before 
the  platform  erected  in  the  south  arch.  The 
ranks  of  chairs  were  early  filled  and  behind  them 
'the  crowds  patiently  stood  up.  By  half  past 
ten  about  an  acre  of  humanity  waited  thus  for 
the  exercises  to  begin,  and  numbers  of  people 


42       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

who  had  failed  to  get  within  earshot  promen- 
aded the  arcades  and  talked. 

The  sky  was  at  its  bluest,  and  the  red  tile  of 
the  low  continuous  roofs  of  the  buildings  glowed 
against  it  with  a  soft  brilliance. 

The  buff  stone  walls,  the  orderly  ranks  of 
columns,  the  shadowed  cloisters — the  gray  floor 
of  the  great  court  broken  by  its  beds  of  greenest 
foliage — the  two  entrances  gay  with  flags  and 
flowers  and  the  third  an  embowered  alcove  for 
the  speakers — and  over  all  the  glinting  radiance 
of  the  California  sunlight.  To  right  and 
left  of  the  platform,  pampas  plumes  and 
palms  sprang  fifteen  feet  up  into  the  light. 
Below  them  palmettos  and  the  delicate  sprays 
of  the  bamboo  encircled  the  rostrum's  edge 
and  were  themselves  encircled  by  long  fes- 
toons of  grapevine,  with  grapes  in  gigantic  clus- 
ters drooping  heavily.  Overhead  fluttered 
bright  banners.  Within  the  alcove  fell  the  rich 
folds  of  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  from  its  back- 
ground the  portrait  of  the  boy  Leland  Stanford 
looked  down  upon  the  scene  with  serious  eyes. 

When  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stanford  appeared 
there  was  heard  for  the  first  time  the  University 
slogan : 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  43 

"Wahool  Wahoo!  L.  S.  J.  U.!  Stmfordr 
Four  hundred  students  seated  together  near 
the  platform  gave  it  down  with  Immense  enthusi- 
asm. It  was  the  lusty  cry  of  the  newborn — we 
smiled  at  each  other  and  felt  that  the  child  had 
arrived. 

The  reporters,  seated  In  a  body  In  the  little 
pen  beneath  the  platform's  edge,  have  given  to 
the  world  a  sufficiently  detailed  account  of  the 
exercises.  The  cameras  perched  precariously 
upon  the  roofs  or  mounted  on  stilts  in  the  midst 
of  the  audience,  have  revealed  to  a  continent 
the  weighty  fact  that  the  representative  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  made  his  address  under  the 
shade  of  a  parasol  held  over  him  by  the  Presi- 
dent, while  the  President,  when  he  spoke,  was  In 
turn  protected  by  the  Professor  of  Mathematics. 
Has  the  public  also  been  told  that  when  the  pro- 
peedlngs  were  over  and  the  favored  guests  had 
departed  to  take  lunch  at  the  Stanford  residence, 
the  crowd  sat  down  In  the  cool  arcades  to  eat  Its 
lunch  and  for  dessert  appropriated  the  decora- 
tive grapes  from  the  deserted  rostrum  ? 

The  month  which  has  passed  since  then  has 
been  busy.  The  boys'  gymnasium  has  gone  up, 
more  professors'   houses  are  begun,  Alvarado 


44       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

Row  has  a  sidewalk.  With  the  unexpected  num- 
ber of  students — four  hundred  and  seventy-five 
at  present — the  President  has  renewed  his  con- 
genial pursuit  of  appointing  instructors.  We 
have,  moreover,  begun  to  make  our  newspaper 
reputation.  Out  of  their  own  rich  experience 
Cornellians  will  sympathize  with  our  dismay 
when  we  discovered  taking  its  unhindered  march 
through  the  press  the  amazing  statement  that 
Senator  Stanford  claims  the  right  to  expel  stu- 
dents "who  do  not  behave  as  he  thinks  they 
should  do,''  and  that  "two  hundred  boys  were 
recently  saved  from  expulsion  only  by  the  inter- 
cession of  Mrs.  Stanford  with  the  infuriated 
old  man"  !  When  our  Western  journals  take 
the  pains  to  fabricate,  no  trouble  is  spared  to 
place  the  product  at  the  top.  The  fine  and  gen- 
erous amplitude  of  the  "two  hundred  students," 
and  the  exquisite  inappropriateness  of  the  wild 
and  woolly  adjective  applied  to  the  gentlest  of 
men,  mark  the  fiction  as  an  indigenous  growth  of 
our  adopted  soil. 

The  Quadrangle  is  busy  now  with  its  proper 
activity.  Classrooms  are  full  to  overflowing, 
and  when  the  triangle  suspended  in  an  archway 
jangles  musically  the  signal  for  change,  the  pass- 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  45 

Ing  of  the  students  fills  the  colonnades  with  a 
stream  of  life  and  motion.  Between  times  a 
studious  silence  reigns,  gently  broken  by  the 
murmur  of  the  lecturer's  voice  as  it  drones 
through  the  open  window.  A  student  or  two 
crossing  the  court,  a  group  or  two  studying 
under  the  arcade's  airy  shelter,  accent  the  scho- 
lastic intent.  Back  and  forth  from  the  railway 
station  lumbers  Paulsen's  mammoth  omnibus, 
characteristically  built  to  hold  forty  passengers, 
and  with  it  runs  a  smaller  vehicle  comically 
labeled  "Stanford's  University."  And  back  and 
forth  from  the  station,  morning  and  night  come 
and  go  non-resident  students. 

It  would  be  no  wonder  if  the  rumor  were  true 
that  Alvarado  Row  has  been  dubbed  by  the  stu- 
dents "the  Decalogue,"  for  up  out  of  the  stubble- 
field  rises  this  prim  row  of  ten  new  dwellings, 
as  yet  unsoftened  by  lawn  or  shrub  or  vine  or 
tree,  and  presenting  to  Encina  at  the  opposite 
edge  of  the  stubble  a  front  of  uncompromising 
rectitude  perhaps  sufficiently  suggestive  of  the 
moral  law.  Up  and  down  the  new  board 
walk  run  the  children  with  their  red 
wheelbarrows,  shovels  and  pails,  and  little  clat- 
tering trajns  of  cars.     At  meal  time  from  one 


46       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

end  of  the  Row  to  the  other  the  various  profes- 
sors may  be  seen  issuing  from  their  houses  bear- 
ing pails — ^wooden  pails,  graniteware  pails,  tin 
pails,  any  kind  of  pails — and  wending  their  way 
to  the  huge,  unsightly  water  tank  which  stores 
the  precious  yield  of  an  artesian  well  near  one 
end  of  the  Row.  About  the  same  time,  if  you 
look  out  of  your  back  door  you  may  see  the 
Faculty  ladies  picking  up  chips  to  start  the  fire 
with  or  even  gathering  wood  from  the  big  wood 
piles.  We  haven't  any  wood-sheds,  but  I  sup- 
pose the  glorious  climate  of  California  makes  it 
unnecessary.  One  day  we  saw  the  Professor  of 
Pedagogy  striding  off  towards  Mayfield  across 
the  open,  and  presently  he  came  striding  back 
again  bearing  a  vermilion  buck-saw,  and  soon 
thereafter  was  descried  exercising  it  upon  his 
woodpile  with  all  his  characteristic  energy. 

The  reason  we  can  see  so  much  of  our  neigh- 
bors is  that  there  is  never  so  much  as  a  leaf  or 
a  lamp-post  between.  I  at  the  extreme  end  of 
the  Row  can  stand  on  my  bare  front  porch  and 
command  at  a  single  glance  the  other  nine.  The 
luminous  atmosphere  and  brilliant  coloring  give 
a  certain  stagey  effect  to  the  landscape  and  make 
you  think  you  are  in  a  play.  So  when  you  come 
out  on  your  porch  you  feel  the  irresponsibility 


THE  CORNELL  COLONY  47 

of  the  player  and  do  not  hesitate  to  merrily 
shout  good  morning  five  houses  down  the  Row. 
Doubtless  when  servants  arrive  and  consider- 
ations of  propriety,  we  shall  change  all  that. 
Pending  the  advent  of  the  electric  light,  the 
flicker  of  the  tallow  dip  was  for  some  time  the 
only  light  shed  upon  the  student  page  at  Encina 
and  Roble.  On  the  Row  the  candle  is  still  in 
fashion  and,  as  electricity  may  be  expected  any 
moment,  we  don't  buy  candlesticks,  but  use  a 
bottle  or  a  redwood  block. 

Perhaps  it  is  the  fabled  spirit  of  the  West, 
perhaps  it  is  the  tonic  breath  of  the  Pacific  com- 
ing in  to  us  over  the  mountains — whatever  it  may 
be,  some  enchantment  has  blinded  us  to  the 
crudities,  the  drawbacks,  the  limitations  of  our 
state.  The  giants  looming  in  the  path  of  the 
pioneer  appear  but  frivolous  windmills  in  our 
eyes.  Come  not  out  to  us,  O  doubting  Cornel- 
lians,  thinking  to  return  untouched  by  the  unrea- 
sonable enthusiasm.  Christmas  shall  bring  you, 
and  the  months  of  spring  shall  bring  you,  criti- 
cal, curious,  speering  after  our  library,  question- 
ing about  our  funds,  and  you  shall  return — if 
you  return  at  all — chanting  as  fervently  and 
irrelevantly  as  we : 

''Die  Luft  der  Freiheit  WehtT 


THE   EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLET- 
ICS AT  STANFORD. 

Frank  Angell. 

(Some  of  the  material  in  this  article  was  taken  from  the 
Naught-Four  "Quad,"  with  the  kind  permission  of  '  the 
"Quad"  editor,  Mr.  Isaac  Russell.  The  personnel  of  the 
teams,  the  scores  of  the  games,  and  other  details  of  the  in- 
tercollegiate matches,  up  to  1900,  may  be  found  in  Sheehan 
and  Honig's  "Games  of  California  and  Stanford.") 

COLLEGE  activities,  academic  and  ath- 
letic, are  no  exception  to  the  rule  that 
the  age  of  human  institution  is  to  be 
measured  not  by  the  passage  of  calendar  years, 
but  rather  by  the  number  of  generations  of  those 
whose  impulses  and  desires  have  sought  expres- 
sion along  certain  broad  and  definite  channels  of 
action.  Now,  the  span  of  a  college  generation 
is  four  years,  and  the  time  in  which  college  tra- 
ditions and  usages  may  take  on  mellowness  of 
age,  and  even  the  flavor  of  antiquity,  lies  within 
the  range  of  the  later  memories  of  its  more 
recent  graduates. 

So  it  has  been  at  Stanford  University;  the  pio- 
neer class  of  the  college — the  first  class  to  take 
the  full  four  years'  course — graduated  in  '95, 
and  already  in  '97  and  '98,  one  hears  faculty 
and  students  alike  speaking  of  these  pioneer  days 
as  "the  good  old  days"  of  the  University. 


EARL  Y  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  A  THLE  TICS      49 

If,  however,  the  writer  has  a  correct  notion  of 
the  distinguishing  attributes  of  a  golden  age,  the 
early  nineties  deserve  rather  to  be  called  the 
golden  age  of  Stanford  athletics,  than  merely 
and  negatively  "the  good  old  days."  Good 
old  days  usually  mean  days  which  are 
old  because  long  past,  and  good  because 
we  don't  know  much  about  them  which  is 
bad  —  or  indeed  much  about  them  at  all. 
Their  goodness  is  an  aesthetic  goodness  due  to 
the  perspective  of  time.  In  the  "good  old  days" 
of  athletics  at  Oxford,  the  "gentlemen  cricket- 
ers" wore  a  sober  and  dignified  uniform  of  swal- 
low-tail coats,  long  trousers  and  chimney-pot 
hats.  Viewed  through  the  perspective  of  time, 
this  sort  of  thing  has  the  elements  of  the  pictur- 
esque, and  so  perhaps  is  good.  But  as  regards 
the  thoughts  and  emotional  utterances  of  the 
young  gentlemen  of  England,  who  had  to  wear 
this  costume,  the  muse  of  history  is  silent  or 
speaks  symbolically  in  blanks. 

Now  the  characteristics  of  a  golden  age  may 
be  summed  up  in  the  term  "happy  carelessness" ; 
things  come  easily  and  go  easily;  no  thought  is 
taken  of  the  morrow;  sufficient  unto  the  day  is 
the  good  thereof.     The  machinery  of  carrying 


5  o       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

out  any  and  all  plans,  If  it  exists  at  all,  is  crude 
and  simple;  but,  driven  by  the  motive  power  of 
a  buoyant  enthusiasm,  works  out  its  ends.  The 
executive  part  of  Stanford's  earliest  Student 
Body  organization  consisted  of  Mr.  Carl  Clem- 
ens— the  star  half-back  of  the  first  Cardinal  foot- 
ball team.  Clemens  was  also  manager  of  the 
team  on  which  he  played,  and  as  recipient  of  the 
funds  of  the  first  big  game,  he  became  de  facto, 
the  first  Student  Body  treasurer.  There  is  no 
record  to  show  that  the  Stanford  athletic  organi- 
zation which  was  established  in  November, 
1 90 1,  with  Mr.  Henry  Timm  as  president,  had 
any  objections,  or  any  reasons  for  objections,  to 
this  simple  monarchial  dispensation  of  its  affairs. 
In  other  ways  there  was  no  lack  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  golden  age;  if  any  one  wanted 
to  form  any  kind  of  a  club,  dub  it  Stanford  and 
play  anybody,  the  Student  Body  made  no  objec- 
tion and  the  faculty  committees  were  silent.  The 
Stanford  Hockey  Club  had  no  official  or  bodily 
existence  on  the  campus,  but  we  learned  from 
time  to  time  through  the  papers  that  it  had  ma- 
terialized in  San  Francisco.  The  Stanford 
Football  Team  was  advertised  to  play  a  game 
with  the  Y.  M.  0.  A.,  of  San  Jose,  and  played 


EARL  Y  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  A  THLE  TICS       5 1 

it,  though  we  had  visible  and  tactual  evidence 
that  all  of  the  Varsity  and  most  of  the  second 
team  were  at  that  time  on  the  campus.  As  each 
of  the  participants  in  this  affair  received  $10  for 
playing  at  the  game,  the  Faculty  Committee  on 
Athletics,  considering  that  the  age  was  becoming 
too  pronouncedly  golden,  made  inquiry — its  first 
— into  the  amateur  standing  of  this  team,  with 
the  result  of  bringing  to  light  the  only  profes- 
sional football  player  ever  graduated  by  the  Uni- 
versity. 

This  "professional"  was  Mr.  Walter  Rose, 
known  at  present  in  San  Francisco  chiefly  as  a 
young  lawyer  of  much  erudition  and  as  an  editor 
of  a  legal  magazine.  In  college  he  was  known 
as  an  able  student  and  as  a  zealous  theorist  of 
football  from  the  standpoint  of  the  side  lines. 
The  San  Jose  game  was  one  of  the  few  occasions 
on  which  Mr.  Rose  was  allowed  to  carry  his 
theories  out  into  practice,  and  when,  after  the 
game,  his  fellow  students  suggested  to  him  that 
he  return  the  $10,  he  declined,  saying  that  he 
preferred  to  go  ringing  down  the  grooves  of 
Fame  as  Stanford's  only  professional  football 
player;  he  thought  the  reputation  cheap  at  the 
price. 


52       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

The  managerial  lot  in  those  days  was  not  a 
strenuous  one;  there  was  nothing  of  the  keen  de- 
sire to  show  a  favorable  balance  which  charac- 
terizes the  manager  of  what  we  may  term  the 
Bessemer  stage  of  our  existence.  Sometimes  the 
manager  made  a  report  and  more  commonly 
he  made  none.  He  was  usually  chosen  more 
for  good  fellowship  than  for  financial  ability. 
Of  vouchers  and  auditors,  of  the  publication 
of  receipts  and  expenditures,  and  other  devices 
of  a  coldly  critical  age  he  knew  nothing,  nor  in- 
deed was  he  called  on  in  any  way  by  the  officials 
of  the  athletic  association  to  justify  his  ways 
before  man.  Naturally  such  a  state  of  affairs 
as  this  could  not  outlive  the  age  of  uncritical  en- 
thusiasm, and  accordingly,  in  the  spring  of 
1894,  there  appeared  a  full-fledged  Student 
Body  constitution  providing  for  the  customary 
officials  and  for  an  executive  as  well  as  an  ath- 
letic committee.  If  a  student  of  today  who  is 
elected  to  the  athletic  committee  wonders  at 
finding  the  committee  packed  with  the  general 
student  officials,  and  possessed  of  little  power 
beyond  awarding  sweaters  and  electing  in- 
tercollegiate delegates,  be  it  said  to  him  that  this 
is  no  effect  of  chance  but  a  direct  result  of  a 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLETICS      53 

feeling  prevailing  among  the  students  of  '93  and 
'94  that  the  athletes  had  been  carrying  things 
with  altogether  too  high  a  hand  in  the  Univer- 
sity, and  that  some  one  must  be  responsible  in  a 
responsible  way  for  the  receipt  and  expenditure 
of  Student  Body  funds.  The  movement  was  in 
reality  a  revolution  which  resulted  in  the  prac- 
tical suppression  of  the  old  athletic  association 
and  the  establishment  of  the  present  constitu- 
tion and  of  the  Student  Body  Treasurership,  with 
Mr.  H.  C.  Hoover,  '95,  as  treasurer — a  re- 
former to  whom  the  Student  Body  is  exceed- 
ingly Indebted  for  starting  it  on  the  straight  and 
narrow  road  of  business-like  methods  in  its 
business  affairs. 

It  may  be  due  to  the  softening  perspective  of 
time  and  it  may  be  due  to  the  kind  of  softening 
that  comes  with  age,  that  the  writer  still  looks 
with  some  fondness  at  the  very  early  days  when 
the  question  of  dollars  and  cents  did  not  cut  so 
large  a  figure,  to  speak  literally,  in  University 
affairs  as  they  do  in  these  times  of  big  gate  re- 
ceipts and  of  expenditures,  nor  is  he  assured 
that  business  sharpness  is  a  more  desirable 
quality  in  a  student  than  a  careless  generosity. 
Still,  so  long  as  the  Student  Body  athletic  busi- 


54       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

ness  mounts  up  into  the  tens  of  thousands  of  dol- 
lars it  can  be  managed  in  no  way  save  by  busi- 
y    ness-like  methods. 

The  early  nineties  were  essentially  the  golden 
age  of  Stanford  football;  the  football  men  had 
their  own  Intercollegiate  Agreement  beyond  and 
above  the  general  agreement,  and  they  had  their 
own  brand  of  big  "S"  which  neither  track  nor 
baseball  might  copy.  In  '92  and  '95  they 
had  Walter  Camp  in  the  flesh;  and  for  that 
first  historic  Stanford-California  football  game 
of  March  19,  1892,  they  had  him  in  the 
spirit.  For  the  Stanford  coach  of  that  sea- 
son was  Walter  Camp's  book  of  "College 
Sports,"  from  which  the  Stanford  men  got 
their  first  lessons  in  interference.  Woe  to 
the  manager  in  these  days  who  does  not  foresee 
every  difficulty  and  make  every  provision  for  both 
players  and  audience!  But  in  the  days  of  '92 
it  was  regarded  merely  as  a  mysterious  dispen- 
sation of  Providence  when  both  teams  appeared 
on  the  old  Haight  Street  grounds  ready  for  the 
contest,  but  with  no  football — and  none  nearer 
than  the  thither  end  of  far-off  Market  Street ! 
University  sentiment  as  regards  training  rules 
'^      had  not  crystallized  in  those  early  days.    When 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLETICS      55 

the  catcher  of  the  Varsity  nine  danced  till  four 
o'clock  of  the  day  on  which  he  represented  Stan- 
ford in  tennis  In  the  morning  and  baseball  in  the 
afternoon — both  Intercollegiate  events — It  was 
regarded  as  something  In  the  nature  of  a  joke. 
But  the  football  men  trained  faithfully;  In 
scholarship  and  social  Influence  and  character, 
the  teams  were  above  the  average  of  the  stu- 
dents, and  if  any  prominent  candidate  on  the 
gridiron  showed  a  tendency  to  fall  from  grace, 
the  team  as  a  whole  saw  to  It  that  he  was  in  the 
straight  and  narrow  path  that  led  to  bed  at  ten 
o'clock. 

To  the  oft-repeated  question:  *'DId  not  Stan- 
ford owe  her  early  victories  in  football  in  great 
part  to  men  of  uncommon  strength  and  native 
football  ability?"  one  must  answer  unhesi- 
tatingly, *'Yes."  They  were  assuredly  giants 
in  those  days.  Looking  back  over  the  list  of 
Stanford  football  heroes,  there  stand  out  pre- 
eminent the  guards,  Carle  and  Fickert,  men  of 
great  speed  and  agility  no  less  than  tremendous 
strength;  the  halfbacks,  Clemens  and  Franken- 
helmer,  the  latter  perhaps  more  dreaded  by 
Berkeley  than  any  other  man  who  ever  wore  the 
Cardinal;    the    ends,    Claude    Downing    and 


56       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Spaulding,  whose  equals  for  speed  and  sureness 
we  have  not  seen  for  many  years;  the  plunging 
fullback,  Cotton,  who  bucked  the  Berkeley  line 
for  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  yards  in  the  '96 
game,  and  the  centers,  Hazzard  and  Williams, 
the  former  of  the  '94  team  and  the  latter  of 
teams  of  '95  and  '96.  The  amount  of  native 
football  ability  was  as  surprising  to  Eastern 
coaches  as  was  the  fact  that  but  very  few  of  the 
players  had  ever  seen  Rugby  football)  before 
coming  to  college.  But  the  stand  for  clean, 
straightforward  football  which  Stanford  main- 
tained from  the  very  first  was  due  in  part  to  the 
character  of  these  early  players  and  in  part  to  the 
influence  of  Walter  Camp — an  influence  which 
in  some  respects  is  yet  operative  at  Stanford. 

The  writer  still  has  a  vivid  impression  of  the 
first  Varsity  baseball  practice  he  saw  on  the 
Stanford  campus.  On  the  ground  now  occupied 
by  the  Oval  there  were  eight  men,  together  with 
a  bat  and  a  ball.  The  practice  consisted  in  great 
part  in  batting  the  ball  far  out  into  the  stand- 
ing wheat,  and  then  sitting  down  while  one  man 
— always  the  same  man — went  and  got  it.  On 
inquiry  I  found  that  the  man  who  thus  diligently 
retrieved  the  ball  was  the  captain.     All  this 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLETICS      57 

naturally  enlarged  my  notion  of  the  duties  of 
a  Varsity  ball  captain.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
easy  to  see  in  the  few  brief  Intervals  when  the 
ball  and  the  captain  were  not  out  In  the  wheat 
fields  that  the  eight  men  were,  in  baseball  par- 
lance, "a  rapid  aggregation." 

The  first  team  to  go  up  against  Berkeley,  In 
the  spring  of  1892,  was  captained  by  Charley 
Adams,  '95,  and  had  among  other  players,  New- 
som,  now  Professor  of  Geology,  as  catcher,  to- 
gether with  four  men,  Sheehan,  Harrelson,  Rus- 
sell and  Lewis,  who  made  the  Varsity  team  four 
successive  years.  In  the  fall  of  '92  there  entered 
college  several  more  baseball  men  of  first-class 
ability,  so  that  the  team  of  '93  seemed,  and  still 
seems,  the  strongest  college  team  the  writer  has 
ever  seen.  The  team  won  three  straight  games 
from  the  strong  and  heavy  hitting  Berkeley 
nine  and  went  through  the  season  undefeated 
save  by  the  Oakland  professionals.  Up  to  '96 
there  was  very  little  competition  for  positions  in 
baseball;  some  years  there  was  one  place  and 
some  years  there  were  perhaps  two  places  that 
might  be  in  doubt,  but  most  of  the  positions 
were  fixed,  and  usually  fixed  correctly,  from  the 
very  minute  the  men  stepped  on  the  diamond. 


5  8       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

In  the  Interest  excited  by  the  big  football  games, 
Stanford's  early  success  In  baseball  has  been 
overlooked,  but  It  was  decided  and  complete. 
Not  until  the  spring  of  '97  did  Berkeley  win  the 
baseball  championship.  In  the  five  seasons  that 
the  teams  had  been  pitted  against  one  another, 
Stanford  had  won  ten  games  out  of  the  twelve 
played.  With  the  class  of  '95  there  passed  out 
of  the  University  the  only  Stanford  team  that 
was  probably  capable  of  competing  successfully 
with  the  very  best  Eastern  teams;  with  a  sure 
outfield  and  remarkable  Infield,  Including  Harry 
Walton,  whose  superior  as  a  catcher,  ama- 
teur or  professional,  the  writer  has  never  seen; 
with  first-class  pitchers  and  the  majority  of  the 
team  heavy  hitters,  It  Is  doubtful  If  one  could 
make  up  from  the  Varsity  nines  of  the  last  five 
years  a  team  that  could  compete  successfully 
with  the  nines  of  '93,  '94  and  '95.  The  fitting 
close  to  the  athletic  career  of  this  remarkable 
team  came  with  the  '95  Senior-Faculty  game, 
which  the  senior  nine,  made  up  substantially  of 
Varsity  players,  won  without  effort,  each  Senior 
playing  a  different  position  every  inning  of  the 
game. 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLETICS      59 

All  the  available  athletic  material  seemed  In 
the  early  days  of  the  University  to  take  to  foot- 
ball or  to  baseball;  at  any  rate  It  did  not  take 
to  the  track.  *' Comparatively  speaking/'  says 
Culver,  '97,  writing  In  the  Sequoia,  "there  were 
no  track  athletics,  no  grounds,  no  Walter  Camp, 
no  anything  except  an  occasional  plan  for  cross- 
country runs  or  a  hare-and-hounds  chase,"  and 
he  Instances  that  the  first  public  notice  of  any 
sport  outside  of  tennis,  football  and  baseball, 
was  a  statement  In  the  Sequoia,  November  9, 
1 89 1,  that  "In  J.  R.  Whittemore  we  have  one 
of  the  record-holders  of  the  United  States,  he 
having  swam  the  mile  In  24  :i  i  3-5." 

Nevertheless,  the  first  year  at  Stanford  was 
the  golden  age  of  our  track  athletics,  and  It  was 
without  alloy. 

In  Stanford's  first  field  day  any  kind  of  an 
event  was  Included  In  which  any  man  thought  he 
excelled.  A  running  and  a  standing  hop,  step 
and  jump,  a  standing  jump  and  throwing  the 
baseball  were  Included  In  this  field  day  of  May 
28,  1892.  The  16-pound  hammer  had  only  to 
pass  over  7 1  feet  7  Inches  to  win  first  place,  and 
5  feet  and  J^  Inch  was  as  high  as  the  bar  had  to 
go  to  fully  satisfy  the  winner  of  the  high  jump. 


6o       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

The  hundred  was  won  by  C.  C.  Adams,  the  first 
Varsity  baseball  captain,  in  io>^  seconds;  and  the 
hundred  and  twenty-yard  hurdles  by  J.  R.  Whit- 
temore,  the  first  Varsity  football  captain,  in 
1 8  ^  seconds.  There  were  in  all  eighteen  events 
in  which  Adams  won  seven  firsts  and  Whitte- 
more  two  firsts  and  four  seconds.  The  prelimi- 
nary field  day,  held  a  month  before,  included  a 
three-legged  race  of  which  the  writer  finds  no 
record ;  the  probability  is  that  Adams  and  Whit- 
temore  ran  it  together. 

But  the  golden  age  of  Stanford's  field  and 
track  men  was  brought  to  a  sudden  close  at  the 
end  of  the  first  year  by  the  exacting  demands  of 
intercollegiate  meets  with  Berkeley,  and  from 
then  on  for  many  years  the  path  of  the  track 
men  was  as  thickly  strewn  with  thorns  as  cinders. 
With  little  support,  moral  and  financial,  from 
the  Student  Body,  denied  a  big  "S"  by  the  foot- 
ball men,  who  asserted  that  track  and  field  men 
did  not  "earn"  an  "S,"  obliged  the  first  year  to 
train  on  a  trotting,  track  of  the  Stock  Farm — a 
long  and  dusty  walk  from  Encina — forced  to  re- 
pair and  maintain  their  own  track  when  they  got 
it,  beaten  by  Berkeley  in  the  first  meet  in  '93,  by 
a  score  of  91  to  35,  they  struggled  on  until,  in 


EARLY  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  A  THLETICS      6 1 

'96,  on  the  old  Olympic  grounds,  they  tied  the 
score — ^6  to  56.  The  next  year,  however,  the 
tie  was  undone,  as  was  the  entire  sporting  ele- 
ment at  Stanford  by  Berkeley  with  a  score  of 
62  J/2  to  493^ ;  and  the  evils  of  betting  In  gen- 
eral, and  of  betting  on  a  dead  certainty  In  par- 
ticular, became  a  current  maxim  of  conduct  at 
Stanford  for  a  college  generation.  Stanford's 
chief  reliance  in  this  meeft  was  Brunton,  '99, 
who,  as  the  writer  can  testify,  had  in  practice  re- 
peatedly run  the  hundred  yards  In  9  4-5  sec- 
onds. But,  overtrained  and  overworked  by  an 
Ignorant  professional  trainer,  Brunton  went  up 
to  the  meet  a  sick  man;  and  the  swiftest 
sprinter  (in  the  writer's  opinion)  who  ever  ran 
on  the  Stanford  track  won  but  five  points  as 
against  the  sixteen  that  he  had  gained  in  his 
freshman  year.  In  '95  there  appeared  for  the 
first  time  on  the  list  of  contestants  the  name  of 
Charley  Dole,  who  In  his  day  and  generation 
was  the  mainstay  of  the  Stanford  team.  In  the 
meet  of  '97  Dole  (probably  Stanford's  best 
all-round  athlete)  won  first  place  In  the  high 
jump,  the  pole  vault,  and  the  two-twenty 
hurdles.  But  Dole  passed  out  of  college  with- 
out seeing  a  Stanford  track  and  field  victory 


62       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

over  California.  Nor  was  there  such  a  victory 
till  the  class  that  as  freshmen  saw  Dole's  best 
efforts  for  the  Cardinal  was  in  the  last  quarter 
of  Its  senior  year — the  class  of  '03.  In  fact, 
almost  a  decade  of  Intercollegiate  track  and  field 
meets  had  passed  before  it  was  reahzed  at  Stan- 
ford how  futile  was  the  policy  of  relying  on  a 
few  stars  to  take  first  places  and  of  neglecting 
the  minor  places  of  an  event.  When  it  was  re- 
alized that  a  full  team  of  men  for  each  event  had 
to  be  carefully  trained,  especially  with  a  view 
to  developing  point  winners  for  future  meets, 
Stanford  began  to  send  out  symmetrical  teams, 
and  the  result  of  this  policy  was  shown  in  1903 
in  the  first  Stanford  track  and  field  victory  over 
the  University  of  California — the  eleventh  year 
of  the  intercollegiate  contest. 

In  the  hurry  and  rush  of  preparation  for 
opening  the  University,  things  happened  which 
were  sometimes  strange  and  sometimes  Inex- 
plicable; to  the  latter  class  belongs  the  locating 
of  the  old  asphalt  tennis  courts  so  that  the  after- 
noon sun  could  fall  full  in  the  face  of  the  players 
on  the  east  side  of  the  nets  and  further  so  that 
the  shadow  of  the  old  gymnasium  could  fall  right 
athwart  the  courts  at  the  time  when  they  were 


EARL  Y  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  A  THLE  TICS      63 

most  used.  But  tennis  began  at  Stanford  on  the 
asphalt  pavement  of  the  Inner  Quadrangle  and 
acquired  impetus  enough  in  the  first  year  to  rise 
to  the  dignity  of  an  intercollegiate  sport.  In 
fact,  despite  the  dazzling  inequalities  of  the 
gymnasium  courts  there  was  more  tennis  play- 
ing at  Stanford  in  1891  and  1892  than  there  has 
been  in  any  year  since,  so  that  in  the  first  inter- 
collegiate tennis  tournament  with  Berkeley,  which 
took  place  at  Oakland  in  June  of  1902  Stanford 
was  represented  by  a  team  of  nine  players  and 
won  five  of  the  nine  events.  In  the  spring  of 
*93  there  was  no  intercollegiate  tennis,  and  in 
the  fall  the  tennis  men  organized  the  Stanford 
Tennis  Club  outside  of  the  regular  athletic 
organization  with  S.  B.  Durand  as  President. 
Three  years  later  the  Executive  Committee 
brought  tennis  into  the  general  fold  of  sports 
under  the  control  of  the  Associated  Students. 
The  best  players  who  represented  Stanford  in 
these  early  years  were  Oliver  Picher  and  L.  R. 
Freeman — the  latter  winning  the  Statei  cham- 
pionship after  leaving  college.  Freeman  also 
enjoys  the  unique  distinction  of  being  the  only 
man  who  has  ever  won  three  Varsity  sweaters 
in  different  branches  of  athletics.    Taken  all  in 


64       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

all,  however,  tennis  has  not  occupied  the  position 
to  which  it  is  entitled.  Too  few  students  take 
part  in  the  sport  and  too  few  of  those  who  do 
play  are  developed  at  the  University  into  skill- 
ful players. 

The  history  of  early  boating  at  Stanford  is 
the  history  of  the  formation  of  a  myth  and  the 
growth  of  a  tradition. 

Somehow,  in  the  fall  of  1892,  it  became 
noised  abroad  that  Senator  Stanford  was  going 
to  give  a  large  sum  of  money  to  send  a  crew  to 
the  World's  Fair  at  Chicago.  It  may  be  that  a 
rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss,  but  a  rolling  story 
of  endowment  gathers  in  a  University  heavily 
compounded  interest.  As  a  grain  of  foreign 
matter  dropped  into  a  saturated  solution  of  cer- 
tain substances  produces  instant  crystallization, 
so  at  the  mere  mention  of  a  fund  for  boating,  a 
boat  club  sprang  into  existence  with  constitution, 
by-laws  and  a  full  set  of  officials.  Nor  was  there 
lack  of  more  concrete  development.  With  about 
$70  in  the  treasury,  the  management  invested 
$27  in  official  stationery,  and  contracted  for  and 
erected  a  $400  boathouse  on  the  shores  of  La- 
gunita,  which  a  later  and  sadder  generation  paid 
for.     The  boathouse  still  stands  on  Lagunlta, 


OF  THE     -^ 

UNIVERSITY 


EARLY  HISTORY  OF  ATHLETICS      6s 

and  is  now  in  some  measure  fulfilling  its  original 
raison  d'etre;  but  for  several  years  a  floating 
debt  was  about  the  nearest  approach  to  a  Var- 
sity navy  which  it  housed.  Later  on  it  was 
turned  into  a  sort  of  annex  to  the  *'Camp";  a 
thrifty  student  "squatted''  in  it,  put  up  a  chimney 
and  fireplace  and  rented  rooms  to  men  only  a 
little  less  impecunious  than  himself.  The  story, 
however,  that  the  board  of  trustees,  or  some 
member  of  the  board  is  "going  to  do  something 
for  boating"  is  still  a  tradition  of  the  University 
and  still  has  gained  believers. 

Of  the  young  women's  athletics  there  is  un- 
fortunately little  to  be  said.  Except  for  two 
asphalt  tennis  courts,  no  provision  was  made  for 
w^omen's  sports  at  the  University.  A  Woman's 
Athletic  Association  was  formed,  with  Miss 
Mabel  Holsclaw  as  president;  and,  in  order  to 
give  the  new  association  an  orthodox  Stanford 
athletic  cast,  a  Dole — Miss  Marion  Dole — ap- 
pears as  secretary.  Under  this  organization  a 
basket-ball  team  was  formed,  which  played  and 
won  a  match  game  with  the  women  of  Berkeley. 
But  owing  to  the  objections  of  the  Faculty  Ath- 
letic Committee  to  public  intercollegiate  matches 
for  women,  the  team  was  practically  disbanded. 


66       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

and  the  athletic  activity  of  women  became  con- 
fined chiefly  to  tennis.  Later  on  hockey  was 
added  to  the  list  of  women's  sports,  but  this,  as 
a  matter  of  modem  athletic  history,  lies  outside 
the  domain  of  the  present  paper. 

Along  in  1899  and  1900  we  began  to  have 
much  rhyming  and  considerable  oratory  on  the 
subject  of  the  "Stanford  spirit."  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  characteristics  of  the  Stanford 
spirit  In  those  years,  it  was  assuredly  something 
different  from  the  spirit  that  prevailed  In  the 
early  nineties,  when  the  students  were  too  en- 
thusiastically busy  In  accomplishing  things  to 
give  rhyming  or  oratorical  thought  to  the  spirit 
that  moved  them.  The  fine,  driving  energy 
which  was  the  main  trait  of  the  early  Stanford 
spirit  was  too  much  taken  up  with  action  to  be 
sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  reflection  on  Its 
own  value.  But  besides  a  tremendous  energy  In 
action,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Stanford 
had  in  its  early  years  an  uncommon  number  of 
very  remarkable  athletes  in  baseball  and  foot- 
ball. The  writer  Is  perfectly  aware  of  the  soft- 
ening as  well  as  enlarging  effects  of  time  on  past 
achievements,  but  making  all  allowance  for  the 
time  perspective,  it  must  be  said  that  while  we 


EARLY  HISTOR  Y  OF  A THLETICS      67 

■ 

have  had  better  football  teams  than  those  of  '93 
and  '94,  we  have  had  none  that  equaled  them  in 
native,  if  untrained,  football  ability,  while  in 
baseball  we  have  had  nothing  to  approach  the 
teams  of  '94  and  '95.  In  track  and  field,  while 
the  spirit  was  more  than  willing,  the  flesh  was 
weak.  But  whether  in  baseball,  which  we  always 
won,  or  in  track  and  field  sports,  in  which  we 
were  invariably  defeated,  there  was  always  pres- 
ent at  Stanford  in  those  early  days  an  enthusi- 
astic and  hopeful  spirit,  which  left  no  room  for 
doubt  of  the  successful  issue  of  whatever  the 
spirit  was  moved  to  undertake. 


LETTERS  HOME. 

An  account  of  life  in  the  Dormitories  during 
the  first  year. 

Charles  Kellogg  Field,  '95. 

Dear  Chum  of  mine,  do  you  recall 

When  college  had  begun, 
The  gladness  of  that  glorious  fall, 

And  how  we  spent  the  "mon"  ? 
The  days  of  cheer,  the  days  of  beer, 

The  days  of  '91. 

Dear  Maid  of  mine,  do  you  recall 

When  first  my  heart  you  won. 
There  were  no  lights  in  Roble  Hall, 

But  oh,  such  loads  of  fun? 
The  days  of  dark,  the  days  of  spark, 

The  days  of  '91. 

Dear  Major  Prof,  do  you  recall 

The  night,  at  set  of  sun. 
We  met  when  each  had  made  his  haul 

Where  vineyard  pathways  run? 
The  days  of  scrapes,  the  days  of  grapes. 

The  days  of  '91. 

Dear  Pioneers,  today,  when  all 

The  four  years'  thread  is  spun. 
The  freshman  follies  we  recall 

We  would  not  have  undone. 
Those  days  when  youth  came  seeking  truth, 

The  days  of  '91. 


( 


LETTERS   HOME  69 

IN  a  recent  Quad,  one  who  writes  of 
Enclna's  place  in  Stanford  life  illus- 
trates his  text  at  the  outset  by  noting 
that  a  recent  issue  of  a  London  paper  had  given 
a  picture  of  Encina  Hall  and  under  it  the  words, 
"View  of  Stanford  University."  As  befits  the 
extended  perspective  of  the  pioneer,  I  shall  go 
still  further  back  for  the  same  illustration,  per- 
haps, to  the  real  source  of  it,  for  all  we  know, 
— finding  it  in  the  San  Francisco  Call  of  Octo- 
ber 2,  1 89 1.  There  appears  a  similar  picture 
of  Encina  (showing  the  original  roof  over  the 
porch),  labelled,  "The  University,"  and  more 
than  that,  a  companion  picture  labelled  "An 
Interior  View,"  showing  the  inside  of  the  origi- 
nal Quadrangle. 

It  is  the  interior  view,  certainly,  that  I  am 
asked  to  give  in  an  article  on  "Life  in  the  Dor- 
mitories During  the  First  Year."  To  properly 
execute  that  commission,  I  have  gone,  not  to  the 
press,  with  its  inaccurate  pictures,  not  to  my 
own  memories  with  their  blurred  outlines  and 
faded  colors,  but  to  contemporary  records, 
those  very  stones  of  straight  history,  two  pack- 
ages of  "letters  home." 


70       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

These  He  before  me  on  my  office  desk,  in  a 
great  metropolitan  building,  miles  and  years 
away  from  the  scene  of  their  writing.  As  I 
read  them  over,  by  one  of  those  coincidences 
that  are  the  heaven-sent  food  of  the  Imaginative 
memory  the  steam  comes  clanking  Into  the  ra- 
diator near  the  window,  a  janitor  goes  down 
the  hallway  with  broom  and  cloth,  and,  as  at  a 
mysterious  signal,  a  hush  comes  upon  the  busy 
street  outside,  leaving  no  more  noise  than 
would  be  made  by  the  fellows  playing  ball  be- 
low my  window, — almost  quiet  enough  to  let 
in  the  call  of  the  meadow-lark  from  the  pasture 
fence.  Presto !  The  big  building  is  Enclna ; 
half  a  mile  away,  at  the  end  of  the  unshaded 
walk,  beyond  the  bare,  sloping  space  in  front  of 
the  low  Quad,  above  the  spreading  beauty  of  the 
Ninety-five  Oak,  Is  Roble;  and  In  both  places, 
by  the  magic  of  this  moment,  these  letters  are 
being  written  again ! 

Who  are  you,  that  you  should  look  over  my 
shoulder?  Who  am  I,  indeed,  that  I  should  let 
you  ?  I  did  not  write  these  letters  home,  nor  did 
anyone  belonging  to  me,  but  the  letters  are 
mine  to  review,    by    the    grace  of  the  English 


LETTERS   HOME  71 

Club's  committee,  and  for  authority  or  excuses 
it  is  there  you  must  apply. 

The  letters  and  the  University  begin  together. 
Jack  (whoever  he  may  be,  internal  criticism 
alone  may  help  us  to  guess)  writes  to  his  father 
(for  money),  to  his  mother  (for  love),  and  to 
his  high-school  chum  who  went  to  work  (for 
fun).  Jill  (her  identity  is  more  baffling,  un- 
less you  have  kept  track  of  such  things)  writes 
to  her  father  (for  money),  and  to  her  mother 
(for  the  sake  of  the  family).  There  are  oc- 
casional letters  to  a  younger  sister,  valuable 
more  for  the  clues  afforded  as  to  Jack  than  for 
light  upon  the  shadowy  history  of  the  time.  The 
bundle  of  Jill's  letters  is  much  larger  than 
Jack's;  the  hand  is  larger,  the  details  more 
elaborated,  and  the  dates  follow  one  another  in 
orderly  procession,  seven  days  apart.  They  are 
the  votive  offerings  of  a  year's  Sunday  after- 
noons. Jack's  are  irregular,  haphazard,  called 
forth  by  the  force  of  a  new  experience  or  the 
realization  of  the  lapse  of  time.  Both  series  of 
letters  contain  unintelligible  matter,  especially 
in  the  beginning,  names  not  found  in  the  Regis- 
trar's book,  cruces  that  for  lack  of  other  inter- 


7  2       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

pretation  must  be  taken  as  facts  of  home,  not 
debatable  and  none  of  our  business. 

Jack's  letters  to  his  father  are  fewest'  in  num- 
ber and  will  be  considered  first  and  disposed  of, 
as  they  deal  but  faintly  with  the  objects  of  this 
investigation.  They  give  most  satisfactory  evi- 
dence of  the  earnest  work  done  by  the  pioneers 
at  the  beginnings  of  student  history.  Dr.  Jor- 
dan's theory  that  the  opening  of  a  new  uni- 
versity draws  to  it  the  pick  of  the  best  men  en- 
tering college  that  year  is  amply  sustained  by 
these  brief  letters  to  an  anxious  parent.  (Yet  in 
the  earliest  of  Jill's  letters  she  says,  "Most  of 
the  boys  here  are  surely  very  wild.")  Incident- 
ally Jack  gives  data  as  to  the  expenses  In  those 
earnest  days. 

"Board  is  $20  a  month,"  he  writes,  on  the  open- 
ing day.  "We  pay  it  in  on  the  first  of  the  month  to 
Bert  Fesler,  the  master  of  the  Hall.  He  has  his 
office  in  a  room  at  one  side  of  the  lobby,  to  the  right 
as  you  come  in  the  front  door.  We  get  our  mail 
there,  standing  in  line,  and  also  candles.  There  are 
no  electric  lights  yet,  though  it  is  all  fixed  for  them. 
I  would  like  to  have  brought  that  bronze  lamp  from 
home  but  they  don't  allow  lamps  here.  It's  pretty 
hard  on  the  eyes,  studying  by  candle-light,  but  I 
won't  let  a  little  thing  like  that  block  me.  Dr.  Jor- 
dan says  many  great  men  have  got  their  education 


LETTERS   HOME  73 

by  this  light,  including  Lincoln.     I  would  like  my 
money,  sure,  before  the  end  of  each  month." 

In  his  next  letter,  two  weeks  later,  the  lights 
have  arrived. 

"It  is  fine  to  have  them.  They  come  on  about  5 
now  and  go  out  at  1 1 :30.  I  try  to  get  all  my  work 
done  by  that  time,  as  I  found  my  eyes  got  stingy 
(from  the  verb,  'to  sting,'  presumably. — Ed.)  from 
the  candle-light.  Many  of  the  boys  have  drop- 
lights.  I  would  like  a  standing  one  with  two  bulbs, 
if  you  don't  think  six  dollars  too  much.  There  is 
no  hot  water  yet  and  the  cold  water  in  the  tubs  is 
not  very  clean.  The  elevators  aren't  in  yet,  either, 
and  so  it  isn't  so  convenient  as  it  will  be  later,  es- 
pecially for  those  who  room  on  the  upper  floors. 
I'm  glad  I  got  a  corner  room  on  the  ground  floor." 

Later,  in  a  letter  to  Bob,  the  high-school 
chum,  this  gladness  is  further  explained. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  first  month,  the  hot 

water  has  arrived,  though  the  elevators  are  still 

delayed. 

"You  ought  to  see  the  hot  water!  It  is  hot,  all 
right,  just  boiling,  but  it  looks  like  the  mutton  broth 
they  have  in  the  restaurant  under  your  office.  *  * 
The  lights  give  a  great  deal  of  bother,  and  are 
off,  half  the  time,  which  interferes  with  study  like 
anything,  as  the  days  are  so  short  now  there  is  not 
much  time  to  study  in  the  daylight." 

Evidently  Jack  came  of  Republican  stock  for 
he  details  at  some  length  to  his  father  a  trip 


74       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 


made  to  San  Jose  in  the  interests  of  the  cam- 
paign, introducing  a  torchlight  procession. 
There  is  an  explanation  that  although  the  uni- 
forms and  torches  were  furnished  by  a  politician 
who  had  a  younger  brother  in  the  Hall,  there 
were  the  expenses  incident  to  such  a  trip,  etc. 

About  this  time  appear  the  beginnings  of  the 
social  life. 

"Most  of  the  boys  who  are  anybody,"  writes  this 
airy  fledgling,  "have  feeds  in  their  rooms  and  in- 
vite the  professors  who  live  in  the  Hall.  Bill  had  a 
turkey  and  things  from  home  and  so  I  had  to  go  in 
and  set  up  the  cider  for  all  of  them." 

Here  follow  figures  unimportant  today. 

One  turns  page  after  page  of  these  letters  to 
his  father  yet  finds  no  mention  of  many  of  those 
expenses  which  are  numbered  among  the  neces- 
sities of  Stanford  life,  today.  To  be  sure,  he 
buys  in  January  a  gray  mortarboard, — incident- 
ally we  note  that  the  Sophs,  few  but  enterpris- 
ing, buy  black  and  the  special  students  red  ones, 
— ^but  the  football  game  is  entered  at  an  aston- 
ishingly small  figure  accompanied  by  the  striking 
statement  that  "Everybody  came  home  on  the 
special  train."  Washing  figures  largely,  of 
course,  but  nowhere  is  there  any  item  for  car- 
riages or  flowers.    Dues  to  class.  Associated  Stu- 


LETTERS   HOME  75 

dents  and  literary  societies  have  begun,  admis- 
sion to  entertainments  in  the  chapel  are  entered, 
but  trips  to  the  city  are  few.  Even  at  the  last, 
Commencement  seems  not  to  have  brushed 
Jack's  pocket  with  its  golden  wings.  The  only 
item  here  worthy  of  mention  is  the  statement, 
"Next  term  we  will  have  to  furnish  our  own 
bedding,  towels,  napkins  and  soap,  but  I  suppose 
Mother  will  look  out  for  that  for  me." 

Jill  speaks  to  her  father  In  a  language  not 
much  different  to  Jack's, — in  what  we  might 
term  the  "father-tongue"  when  the  children 
"lisped  in  numbers"  (and  let  us  trust  "the  num- 
bers came")  ! 

"Mr.  Fesler  comes  over,"  writes  Jill,  "at  a  cer- 
tain time,  posted  on  the  bulletin-board  about  a 
week  or  two  before  hand,  and  it  is  usually  about 
the  first  of  the  month.  I  always  need  money  enough 
to  pay  my  board  in  advance  and  my  washing.  When 
I  want  my  own  money,  I'll  write  for  it,  but  I  don't 
want  to  write  for  the  monthly  money,  please." 

In  a  later  letter  she  declares  she  will  need  no 
more  clothes  as  everyone  dresses  very  simply 
and  some  gowns  she  has  she  plans  to  save  until 
spring. 

"Whatever  money  can  be  spent  on  me,  outside  of 
actual  necessities,  must  be  in  books." 


76        THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

But  friendships  are  formed  and  before  long, 
Jill  is  writing : 

"I  must  have  $io  before  Thanksgiving  for  we  are 
invited  to  Mollie's  for  the  hoHdays.  I  will  do  my 
Christmas  shopping  then." 

She  tells  her  father,  as  a  bit  of  good  news, 
that: 

"There  is  a  physician  here,  Dr.  Wood,  employed 
by  the  university  to  take  care  of  us.  It  will  be  a 
good  place  to  be  sick  in." 

Evidently,  father  had  expressed  his  opinion 
of  doctors^  bills,  in  other  days. 

By  February,  the  resolution  against  dress  has 
yielded  to  the  need  of  a  Colonial  costume  for 
the  Martha  Washington  party.  However,  in 
the  letters  of  both  students  the  lack  of  expensil 
is  manifest  and  the  simplicity  of  the  life  speaks 
from  every  page. 

Jack  does  manfully  with  the  letters  to  his 
mother.  They  make  up  the  bulk  of  his  corres- 
pondence. 

''There  is  a  Bible  on  the  table  in  each  room  in  the 
Hall,"  he  begins.  "The  whole  place  smells  very 
clean  and  varnishy.  It  is  brand-new.  The  floors  are 
bare,  but  there  are  rolls  of  cocoa-matting  in  the 
hallways,  so  that  is  going  to  be  all  right.  In  our 
room  there  are  two  small  rugs,  brown  with  gray 
flowers  on  them.    I  wish  I  could  have  a  rug  to  cover 


i 


LETTERS   HOME  77 


the  middle  of  the  floor.  It's  cold  mornings  going 
over  to  the  washstand.  *  *  *  Xhe  blankets 
they  give  us  are  all  right,  bright  red,  with  L.  S.  J. 

U.  ( )  in  a  monogram  in  the  middle.    All 

these  blankets  have  been  woven  from  wool  sheared 
from  the  sheep  on  Mr.  Stanford's  ranch  up  in  Te- 
hama County.  *  *  *  The  janitors  in  the  Hall 
are  all  students.  They  take  care  of  the  rooms.  Our 
janitor  is  a  man  with  a  beard  but  he  is  a  freshman. 
The  dust  here  gathers  something  fierce,  much  more 
than  at  home." 

"Robles  Hall,  the  name  of  our  dormitory,"  writes 
Jill,  about  this  time,  "is  not  quite  finished  yet.  The 
whole  building  has  been  put  up  in  just  one  hundred 
days.  Our  real  Hall,  of  stone,  like  the  boys',  will 
not  be  finished  until  next  summer.  The  stone  for  it 
is  already  lying  on  the  ground  outside.  In  the 
meantime  this  hall,  a  temporary  structure,  built  of 
concrete,  will  be  used  for  our  accommodation.  It  is 
very  pretty,  indeed.  The  workmen  have  called  it 
the  'Angels'  Hall'  ever  since  they  began  work  upon 
it  and  that  is  what  the  girls  are  called  here.  The 
first  number  of  the  Palo  Alto,  which  came  out  on 
the  opening  day,  has  a  poem,  "Chant  to  the  Angels 
in  Bright  Robles  Hall.'  The  parlor  is  rough  walls, 
as  are  all  the  rooms,  painted  in  delicate  shades.  Ours 
is  light  blue  and  ecru.  The  parlor  is  pale  blue  and 
pink,  a  large,  long  room.  At  either  end  is  a  pretty 
mantel  and  by  each  a  pink  as  well  as  a  blue  chair 
with  large  ribbon  bows,"  [and  so  on.]  "  *  *  * 
The  blankets  on  our  beds  are  soft  white  ones  with 
blue  borders.  We  have  to  take  the  daily  care  of  our 
rooms  and  once  a  week  they  are  swept  and  dusted 


7  8        THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 


by  the  maids.     *     *     *     The  soap  they  furnish  is 
that  pink-and-white  Castile  kind." 

Out  of  his  home-sick  heart  Jack  pours  his 
opinion  of  the  dormitory-cuisine,  doubtless  to  a 
sympathetic  listener  who  tries  to  make  amends 
by  sundry  express  packages  from  civilization. 

"There  are  290  boys  in  the  Hall.  Twelve  tables 
in  the  dining  room,  twenty-six  chairs  at  each.  The 
professors  all  sit  together  at  a  corner  table.  There 
is  a  head  waiter,  and  the  cooking  and  waiting  are 
all  done  by  Chinamen.  A  man  named  Otto  Well- 
weber  is  the  steward.  Just  now,  the  girls'  hall  isn't 
finished  and  they  are  eating  over  here.  We  have  to 
wait  for  them  to  get  through.  They  sit  at  three 
tables  near  the  doors,  and  we  get  up  on  the  stairs 
and  watch  them  through  the  windows.  It  makes 
them  awfully  uncomfortable.  We  call  it  'seeing  the 
hens  fed.'  Some  of  the  fellows  have  left  their  visit- 
ing cards  under  their  plates.  There  is  a  fellow  here 
from  Berkeley  who  says  they  call  the  girls  'co-eds' 
up  there.  He  is  dead  against  girls  at  college  but 
it  doesn't  bother  mie  one  way  or  the  other.  The 
board  does,  though!  Things  don't  come  hot  and 
it's  pretty  much  the  same  kind  of  food.  You'd  think 
you  were  at  some  kind  of  a  celebration  in  Ventura 
County.  You  know  that's  the  biggest  bean  county 
in  the  world.  We  have  beans  everywhere,  boiled 
and  baked,  and  three  times  a  day.  We  have  cold 
beef  and  mutton  and  more  mutton  and  beef  that 
isn't  supposed  to  be  cold;  lots  of  all  right  milk; 
dried  fruit,  stewed  or  inside  heavy  lids;  there  are 
two  kinds  of  pudding,  alternating.     One  is  a  kind 


LETTERS    HOME  79 


of  wet  cake,  peppered  with  dried  currants,  the  other 
we  call  'tombstone  pudding,'  it's  a  slab  of  blamonge 
floating  in  a  rosy  hair-oil." 

Jill  is  more  patient  but  far  from  satisfied. 

"Our  food  is  good  but  not  tempting,  beans,  po- 
tatoes, meat,  etc.  There  is  no  tempting  aroma  com- 
ing from  them,  and  they  are  not  seasoned  and  fixed 
to  attract  the  palate,  but  it  seems  not  necessary,  as 
the  climate  makes  all  eat.  Our  dining  room  has  six 
tables,  seating  fourteen  each.  It  is  not  yet  ready, 
so,  for  a  little  while,  w.e  have  to  walk  over  to  the 
boys'  hall.  There  are  seventy-two  of  us  and  we  go 
over  two  by  two,  like  seminary  girls  out  walking. 
We  have  our  dinner  first  and  when  we  come  out  the 
boys  are  all  standing  watching  us.  There  is  the 
meanest  little  step  right  in  front  of  the  dining  room 
door  and  the  boys  just  look  to  see  how  we  manage 
it.  It  is  hard  not  to  catch  your  heel  or  something 
with  all  those  horrid  eyes  on  one.  *  *  *  It  is 
common  report  that  there  are  very  many  boys  at 
Encina  who  are  not  at  all  desirable  and  that  the 
faculty  are  going  to  throw  them  out.  I  haven't  met 
any  boys  yet  so  I  haven't  met  Uncle  Will's  friend's 
son.  I  do  not  expect  to  know  any  of  them  in  a 
hurry." 

Of  course,  the  influence  of  contrast  with  home 
is  strong  upon  these  descriptions  of  pioneer  liv- 
ing. Viewed  with  the  unbiased  eyes  of  later 
years,  both  writers  would  doubtless  agree  that 
the  Halls  gave  an  abundance  of  good,  whole- 
some food,  well  enough  cooked,  poorly  served 


8o       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

and  lacking  In  variety.  As  It  was,  the  Univer- 
sity lost  considerable  money  on  Its  dining  room 
the  first  year,  though  practically  the  whole  stu- 
dent body  and  many  professors  lived  at  the 
Halls. 

There  were  aids  to  comfort,  however.  We 
find  Jill  writing,  early  In  October : 

**We  have  access  to  the  Stanford  vineyard  and 
that  is  where  the  girls  usually  go  for  their  exercise. 
This  seems  very  generous  but  it  is  such  an  immense 
tract  that  even  four  hundred  boys  and  girls  could 
hardly  make  an  impression  on  it." 

An  impression  seems  to  have  been  made  some- 
where, for  Jack  writes  soon  after: 

"We  have  to  go  after  dark  for  our  grapes  now. 
There's  a  mounted  watchman  but  it's  a  big  place, 
and  easy  hiding  under  the  big  vines.  *  *  *  The 
other  night,  I  busted  into  a  room  by  mistake.  It 
belonged  to  a  prof  and  he  and  another  prof  were 
at  the  table  and  they  had  a  big  newspaperful  of 
grapes  of  the  vineyard  color  and  they  were  munch- 
ing away  as  calmly  as  though  they  had  bought  them 
from  Bracchi,  the  fruitman  at  Mayfield.  I  sneaked." 

"There  are  no  rules  here,  as  yet,"  writes  Jill,  "but 
there  are  a  few  things  we  are  expected  to  do,  like 
coming  in  at  9  o'clock,  be  on  time  for  meals  and 
some  other  things  that  we  would  do  anyway." 

"Dining  room  hermetically  sealed  at  8  in  the 
morning,"  sighs  Jack,  "and  hall  locked  at  10:30. 
We  have  a  corner  room  on  the  ground  floor  so  when 


LETTERS   HOME  8i 


we're  out  later  than  that  we  crawl  in  the  window 
and  the  other  fellows  are  gradually  making  use  of 
the  scheme.  The  watchman  is  our  friend,  anyway, 
and  doesn't  trouble." 

Alas,  in  a  January  letter  is  reported  the  ad- 
vent of  a  new  watchman  who  really  watches. 

Early  In  October,  Jill  mentions  the  first  so- 
cial event,  a  reception  given  by  Miss  Leach,  the 
mistress  of  Roble.  There  are  no  electric  lights 
but  the  rooms  and  the  girls  look  pretty  in  the 
soft  candle-light  and  there  are  fires  In  the  parlor 
grates,  making  things  cozy. 

"What  to  wear  was  a  great  question,  for  we  had 
been  requested  to  dress  simply  and  I  believe  Mrs. 
Stanford  suggested  gingham  and  calico.  Of  course, 
this  did  not  meet  the  approval  of  the  girls  for  all  oc- 
casions and  they  were  most  afraid  to  wear  anything. 
*  *  *  After  the  reception  we  all  felt  better  be- 
cause we  knew  some  of  the  boys,  and  the  boys  be- 
cause they  knew  the  girls.  Some  of  them  seemed 
nice,  and  many  I  knew  were  not,  and  some,  if  they 
were  nice,  were  bores." 

She  mentions  here  meeting  one  whom  we  may 
strongly  suspect  to  be  the  writer  of  the  Jack  let- 
ters, but  her  comment  is  brief  and  we  cannot 
classify  him. 

"  *  *  *  and  everyone  had  gone  by  a  quarter 
to  ten." 


82        THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Shades  of  returning  couples  under  the  lop- 
sided moon  of  3  a.  m.,  after  a  Senior  ball ! 

By  October  3  ist,  Miss  Leach  has  given  up  the 
struggle,  and  Mrs.  Richardson,  mother  of  a 
professor,  succeeds  her.  Not  long  after  her 
accession  Encina  desires  to  return  the  courtesy 
of  the  recent  reception,  and  a  formal  invitation 
arrives  at  Roble. 

"All  the  girls  were  pleased,"  gossips  Jill  (we  have 
her  word  for  the  whole  affair),  "and  some  were 
overjoyed  because  they  knew  that  the  boys  were 
practicing  so  as  to  have  music  for  dancing."  (Ar- 
cadian simplicity!)  "When  this  became  generally 
known,  all  the  girls  were  a  little  displeased  with  the 
idea  and  some  of  the  mature  ones  thought  that  aside 
from  our  not  being  well  enough  acquainted  and  it 
being  more  proper  that  the  girls  should  give  the 
first  dance,  and  that  some  of  the  young  men  were 
known  not  to  be  of  the  best  character,  it  was  a  little 
soon  for  us  to  be  giving  dances  and  it  would  go  in 
the  papers  and  look  as  though  we  were  in  a  hurry 
for  such  things.  We  have  an  organization  in  the  Hall 
and  we  bring  before  it  matters  that  concern  us.  We 
had  a  meeting  and  decided  to  send  a  note  to  Mr. 
Fesler  that  the  young  ladies  preferred  not  to  dance 
at  this  early  date  and  on  the  slight  acquaintance  or 
some  such  word.  The  boys  were  howling  mad  and 
sent  a  note  over  Friday  afternoon  saying  that  owing 
to  circumstances  over  which  they  had  no  control 
they  could  not  receive  us." 


LETTERS   HOME  83 

Yet  in  spite  of  social  storms,  it  is  on  record 
(by  Jill),  that  Jack  has  called  twice  at  Roble. 

"The  second  Friday  in  each  month  is  for  recep- 
tion nights." 

Here  comes  a  strain  of  ancient  song,  ghost- 
like in  the  memory : 

"Sweeter  far  is  conversation 

In  the  open  air, 
Than  on  Fridays,  in  the  parlor. 

When  the  matron's  there !" 

Meanwhile,  Jack  has  been  busy,  if  we  may 
believe  his  letters  to  his  home  chum,  and  per- 
haps we  may,  since  we  have  believed  his  letters 
to  his  father.  He  describes  breezily  and  at 
length  the  launching  of  an  empty  flat-car  from 
its  rest  on  the  spur  track  in  front  of  the  Hall 
with  the  threatened  danger  on  the  main  line  and 
the  subsequent  wide  airing  given  the  escapade 
by  the  papers. 

"They  say  Senator  Stanford  was  going  to  fire  the 
whole  Hall  from  college,  but  Mrs.  Stanford 
smoothed  him  down." 

There  are  detailed  descriptions  of  early  visits 
to  Mayfield,  callow  plunges  into  such  dissipa- 
tion as  the  village  afforded,  and  subsequent  sus- 
pensions from  college.     Jack  seems  to  be  hold- 


84       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

ing  his  breath  just  now.  Indignation  against  the 
faculty  burns  through  these  pages.  Surely  the 
writer  smiles  over  them  today ! 

In  November,  Jack  goes  out  into  the  moist 
night  with  a  pail  of  white  paint  and  morning 
reveals  the  numeral  '95  on  fence  and  tank  and 
on  a  rich  old  tree  that  leans  out  from  a  brick 
coping  and  almost  touches  the  ground  beside  the 
walk  to  Roble.  Henceforth,  this  is  the  Ninety- 
five  Oak  until — the  letters  have  stopped  long 
before  then! 

The  merry  custom  of  room-wrecking,  "turn- 
ing-up  a  room"  is  becoming  popular  at  Encina. 
The  luckless  tenant  of  No.  — ,  returning  from 
library  or  Mayfield,  finds  all  but  the  walls  of  his 
room  inverted,  with  his  inkstand  crowning  un- 
steadily the  sorry  pile.  At  Roble,  Jill  speaks  of 
this  as  "making  pie  of  a  room."  Much  merri- 
ment is  reflected  in  her  account  of  a  mock  trial 
held  at  Roble  for  the  conviction  of  the  "pie- 
makers"  in  a  certain  case.  JilPs  complicity  is 
manifest. 

"The  judge  pronounced  the  sentence  requiring  us 
to  make  the  beds  for  two  weeks  and  also  to  turn  the 
mattresses." 

"Last  evening,"  chronicles  Jill,  in  another  letter, 
"we  borrowed  the  watchman's  lantern  and  went  to 


LETTERS    HOME  85 


call  on  Dr.  Jordan  at  Escondite  Cottage.  It  was 
wet,  and  the  mud  here  is  the  stickiest  stuff  you  can 
imagine.  It  is  called  'dobey'  and  they  used  to  make 
houses  of  it.  Many  of  these  houses  are  still  hold- 
ing together  and  I  am  not  a  bit  surprised.  As  we 
were  picking  our  way  past  Encina  a  lot  of  boys 
leaned  out  of  the  windows  and  talked  about  us  and 
our  lantern.  One  of  them  asked  if  we  were  going 
to  a  dance.  Some  of  the  things  they  said  were  really 
funny  but  of  course  we  hurried  on,  through  puddles 
and  all." 

In  another  place  we  catch  our  breath  a  mo- 
ment at  her  words : 

"I  have  been  to  Mayfield  and  shall  probably  go 
again  occasionally  in  the  evening." 

Our  minds,  fresh  from  Jack's  letters,  regain 
their  composure  as  we  read : 

"Many  of  the  girls  like  to  help  out  the  minister 
there  who  used  to  teach  them  at  the  University  of 
the  Pacific." 

So  we  breathe  again. 

"They  have  fired  the  student  helo  and  it's  all  Japs 
now,"  writes  Jack,  in  December.  "They  circulated 
a  petition  here  in  the  Hall  to  put  the  students  back. 
A  Sophomore  named  Zion  got  it  up.  They  call  him 
the  Socialist  now, — 'Sosh,'  for  short." 

Now  there  is  a  mass-meeting  in  Encina  lobby, 


86       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

demanding  better  food.    Here  we  find  quoted  a 
yell  of  the  time: 

"Rub,  rub,  rub, 
We  want  grub, 

'95,  '95, 
Rub,  rub,  rub !" 

Adderson  is  the  new  steward,  already  men- 
tioned as  Santa  Claus  for  his  reverend  beard  to 
which,  seemingly,  no  reverence  is  shown. 

By  this  time,  the  light,  traveling  more  slowly 
than  is  taught  in  high  school  physics,  has  pene- 
trated the  soft  twilight  of  Roble  and  has  reached 
even  the  faculty  dwellings  and  the  Quadrangle. 

"It's  all  very  well  to  have  light  everywhere,"  com- 
plains Jack,  "but  the  power  isn't  strong  enough  for 
it  all  so  the  lights  go  out  at  10:30  now,  an  hour 
earlier,  and  our  steam  heat  is  weak  and  it's  cold 
mornings,  I  can  tell  you !" 

The  spacious  basement  has  now  gained  the 
luxury  of  billiard  tables  and  a  dentist. 

Once  more  Fate,  dealing  delicately  with  the 

tangles  of  social  life,  leads  the  Roble  maidens 

to  the  scorned  portals  of  Encina. 

"While  our  stove  is  being  fixed  we  are  again  din- 
ing at  the  boys'  dormitory,"  writes  Jill,  in  whose 
virgin  bosom  the  ice  has  thawed  somewhat.  "Most 
of  the  boys  over  there  are  nice  boys  and  those  who 
are  not,  are  more  silly  and  young  than  anything 
else.'' 


LETTERS   HOME  87 

Aha,  the  time  may  come  when  the  Ninety-five 
Oak  shall  bend  over  for  further  confidences  I 

So  the  term  has  slipped  along  and  the  Uni- 
versity is  fairly  started.  Yet  we  are  conscious 
of  having  passed  a  very  quiet  Thanksgiving. 
Jill's  father  has  sent  the  ten  dollars  and  she  has 
visited  near  San  Jose.  Jack  has  duly  acknowl- 
edged a  "turkey  box,"  and  reported  a  holiday 
ride  into  the  La  Honda  redwoods.  Not  one 
word  has  been  said  about  the  Team.  But  there 
are  other  letters. 

On  New    Year's   Eve,    the    old    wound  has 

healed,   for  Jill's  New  Year  letter  is  jubilant 

with  reports  of  "Encina's  first  reception." 

"At  7  o'clock  we  all,  with  Mrs.  Richardson,  were 
wending  our  way  toward  the  banquet  hall.  All  the 
young  men  and  the  professors  who  live  at  Encina 
were  in  their  best,  some  in  full  dress  suits,  and  re- 
ceived us  as  we,  also  in  our  best,  I  in  my  brown  with 
red  sash,  etc.,  filed  past  them." 

The  evening  is  a  dramatic  and  social  triumph, 
each  girl  going  into  supper  with  two  escorts.  At 
this  table  was  sounded  the  first  note  of  that  roar 
of  athletic  spirit  that  before  many  weeks  was  to 
be  heard  in  San  Francisco.  Professor  Sampson, 
English,  had  arrived  from  the  East  that  day  and 
he  started  enthusiasm  in  his  speech  at  the  sup- 
per.   Jill  mentions  it  and  Jack  says : 


8  8        THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

''He  made  a  big  hit  with  us  all  and  everybody  is 
getting  interested  in  athletics." 

Later,  Jill  reports  that  "the  Olympiads,  a 
club  from  San  Francisco  came  down  to  play 
football,  and  after  the  game  the  Roble  dining- 
room  was  so  noisy  you  couldn't  hear  yourself 
think,  and  some  of  the  girls  were  so  excited  they 
couldn't  eat." 

Jack  is  quietly  enthusiastic  and  mentions  that 
the  Olympic  captain  sat  at  his  table. 

Now  events  and  interests  crowd  one  another 

in  the  letters.    In  January,  the  men's  gymnasium 

is  built   and    Miss    Thompson    succeeds  Mrs. 

Richardson  at  Roble. 

"She  seems  in  sympathy  with  the  calling  if  they 
go  home  early  enough, — and  that  can  be  managed." 

So  Friday  is  no  longer  distinguished. 

Jack  has  a  week's  illness  in  bed,  and  Mrs. 
Comstock,  from  Cornell,  the  only  lady  accorded 
the  privilege  of  residence  in  Encina,  comes  and 
reads  to  him  and  makes  him  "comfy,"  and  is 
honored  with  the  tribute : 

"It  was  next  best  to  having  you,  Mother." 

The  last  of  January  the  girls  have  a  real  danc- 
ing party  all  to  themselves.  Ever  since  the  open- 
ing, the  pianos  have  been  busy  in  both  Halls, 


LETTERS   HOME  89 

grinding  out  music  for  the  "stag"  and  "dove" 
dances,  and  many  an  unskilled  pair  of  feet  has 
learned  to  follow  the  maze  and  the  rhythm  of 
the  "light  fantastic."  But  now  Roble  goes  a 
bit  further  and  has  a  party  with  gentlemen, 
queer,  foreshortened  gentry  with  abundant  hair 
and  high  laughter.  Jill  says  she  went  as  a  man 
and  Jack  mentions  lending  his  evening  clothes 
for  the  occasion.    Deductions  are  easy. 

The  dormitories  are  rife  with  discussion  and 
the  color  and  yell  have  been  adopted.  Around 
Encina,  lusty  voices  have  exulted  in: 

Wah  hoo !  wah  hoc ! 
L.  S.  J.  U., 
Stanford ! 
and 

Rah,  rah,  rah ! 
Stanford,  ah! 
Palo  Alto, 
Rah,  rah,  rah ! 

but  from  now  on,  the  yell  is  fixed,  gaining  in 
speed  as  the  years  give  practice. 

February  finds  the  mandolin  club  organized 
to  the  extent  of  giving  a  serenade  to  Roble.  Now 
the  dining  tables  in  Encina  are  apportioned  to 
the  different  organizations,  the  fraternities  and 
"crowds"   that    have    taken    form    from   the 


90       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

friendly  chaos  of  the  first  term.  In  March,  the 
first  exodus  takes  place.  The  Phi  Delta  Thetas 
move  to  their  big  club  house  (now  Madrono 
Hall),  where  they  take  professors  to  board. 

February  saw  a  Martha  Washington  party  at 
Roble. 

"Too  many  people  for  us  to  have  refresh- 
ments," notes  Jill,  ignorant  of  caterers.  She 
mourns  the  death,  by  the  cars,  of  "Roble,"  the 
tramp  dog  she  has  fed  at  the  back  door  and 
which  has  followed  her  to  classes. 

March  i8th   is   the   night  before  the  game. 

Jack  is  alive  with  excitement. 

"The  Team  went  to  bed  early,  and  we  were  told 
to  keep  quiet  but  we  couldn't  go  to  bed  so  we  had 
whisper-speeches  and  tried  over  softly  the  new  song 
'Rush  the  Ball  Along.'  " 

After  the  game  there  is  great  joy  in  Encina 
Lobby  and  one  man  reads  aloud  from  the  Berke- 
ley Occident  lofty  prophecies  regarding  the 
slaughter  of  the  "Stanford  Kidlets"  by  the 
"Berkeley  Giants,"  beautifully  humorous  in  the 
light  of  14  to  10. 

In  April,  the  Founders  are  home  from  Wash- 
ington, and  a  line  of  two  hundred  students  from 
Encina  tramps  through  the  vineyard  and  sere- 


LETTERS   HOME  91 


nades  the  residence,  being  rewarded  with  sup- 
per within  and  a  talk  by  the  Senator. 

A  baseball  victory  in  San  Francisco  excites  the 
campus  again,  and  the  night  is  celebrated  with 
bonfires  and  a  nightgown  parade,  with  Roble 
on  the  line  of  march,  and  the  painting  red  of  the 
little  station  at  Palo  Alto  an  incident. 

Through  the  year.  Jack  has  written  to  Bob, 
in  the  home  town,  letters  that  melt  the  heart 
toward  Mr.  Fesler,  the  luckless  master  of  the 
Hall. 

"He  goes  about  on  rubber  heels,"  relates  Jack, 
gleefully,  *'but  we  get  in  lots  of  fun.  We  swipe  all 
sorts  of  food  from  the  dining  room  and  down  cellar. 
Fve  been  down  the  elevator  shaft  and  got  into  the 
pie  place  with  good  results.  We  get  milk  out  of  the 
pans  behind  the  iron  grating  by  means  of  syphons. 
(Look  up  your  physics  book.)  We  all  have  alcohol 
lamps  in  our  rooms  and  ground  chocolate  and  coffee 
and  we  get  up  bully  feeds.  The  fellows  bring  in 
their  shaving-mugs  for  cups  or  steins  as  the  oc- 
casion may  demand.  There's  a  fruitman  at  May- 
field  sells  claret  for  thirty  cents  a  gallon.  They  say 
he  takes  it  back  of  the  store  and  runs  water  into  it 
but  it  makes  good  punch.  *  *  *  You  know,  the 
lights  go  out  every  little  while  and  then  we  have 
joy.  Did  you  ever  hear  a  light-bulb  'pop'  in  a  fel- 
low's hair,  if  you  hit  him  right,  in  the  dark  ?  Some- 
times the  fellows  go  too  far.  One  lazy  cuss  went 
into  a  sick  fellow's  room  and  took  the  tray  of  dishes 


92        THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  ATS  TAN  FORD 


and  dropped  it  into  the  lobby  from  the  fourth  floor 
hall.  Gee,  what  a  racket !  But,  of  course,  it  might 
have  killed  anybody  who  happened  along  just  then. 
*  *  *  I  have  the  hardest  luck,  sometimes.  Last 
night  I  was  laying  for  a  man  to  come  out  of  the 
bath  room.  When  he  came,  I  banged  him  with  the 
pillow  and  it  turned  out  to  be  a  prof  who  lives  on 
that  floor.  *  *  *  You  ought  to  see  the  chairs  in 
the  lobby.  It  looks  like  a  chair  hospital.  When  any- 
one breaks  a  chair  in  his  room  he  sneaks  it  out  into 
-^  the  lobby  and  takes  a  good  one.  It's  dangerous  now 
for  visitors  to  'take  a  seat.'  *  *  *  The  busmen 
always  drive  visitors  round  the  east  end  of  the  hall 
and  we  have  fishpoles  that  we  thrust  out  of  the  win- 
dows with  different  signs  hanging  from  them,  like, 
*Do  you  wear  pants,'  etc.  Then  the  fellows  call  out 
funny  sayings,  too.  *  *  *  We  got  up  a  good 
trick  the  other  day.  You  take  a  broom  and  soak  a 
sponge  in  the  wash  basin  until  it's  full,  then  put  it 
inside  the  broom  and  you  can  send  the  water  flying 
through  the  window  of  the  man  above,  all  over  him 
studying  at  his  table.  Then  another  thing  we  do. 
We  take  a  paper  bag  or  a  paper  box  and  fill  it  with 
water  and  drop  it  from  a  height  on  the  walk  in  front 
of  a  person  and  it  will  explode,  and  with  such  force 
that  it  will  soak  him  clean  through  to  the  skin.  We 
did  that  to  a  fellow  yesterday,  a  dig,  and  he  was 
wild,  but  the  water  blinded  him  and  he  couldn't  tell 
which  room." 

Small  wonder  that  May  15th  sees  Mr.  Fes- 
ler's  resignation,  and  small  amends  that  he  Is 
presented  with  compliments  and  a  gold  watch 


LETTERS   HOME  93 

as  a  farewell  testimonial  from  the  Happy 
Family  in  the  Hall.  C.  K.  Jenness,  '92,  takes 
his  place. 

Jill  describes  the  first  original  dramatic  per- 
formance, a  farce  in  nine  scenes,  for  the  benefit 
of  Roble's  new  reading  room,  called,  *'This 
Year  at  Stanford,"  a  review  of  the  year's  inci- 
dents, faithfully  portrayed  by  actors  in  the 
chapel  who  addressed  one  another  by  their  reg- 
istered names,  excepting  in  the  last  scene  where 
about  a  dozen  members  of  the  Faculty  were  im- 
personated with  the  freedom  b6m  of  intimate 
acquaintance. 

Just  before  Commencement,  the  Pioneers 
have  a  party  at  Roble,  and  the  Sophs,  like  the 
little  men  at  Gulliver,  steal  the  lemonade  of  the 
big  class  and  change  its  boastful  numeral  upon 
the  tank.  The  first  rush  ensues  but  the  victory 
is  not  one  that  draws  much  comment  from  the 
somewhat  humiliated  Jack. 

Commencement  in  the  Gym,  June  15  th, 
hardly  mentioned  by  either  correspondent,  and 
the  Pioneer  year  is  over.  The  letters  have 
grown  shorter,  more  concise,  as  the  college  in- 
terests have  thickened.    The  eager  questions  re- 


94       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

garding  home  affairs  have  given  place  to 
apologies  for  Inadequate  writing  because,  "there 
is  so  little  time."  The  wonderful  beauty  of  the 
campus,  the  purple  hills  to  east  and  west,  the 
radiance  of  the  Santa  Clara  springtime,  the  blue 
nights  In  the  moonlit  Quad,  these  Influences 
speak  from  pages  sent  to  an  Eastern  home;  the 
stirrings  of  loyalty  to  the  experimental  Uni- 
versity, the  growing  sense  of  tradition-making, 
these  show  forth  even  In  the  brief  sentences  that 
go  home  "to  let  you  know  I'm  all  right  even  if 
you  don't  hear  from  me." 

And  to  him  who  has  looked  these  letters  over, 
in  a  tender  amusement,  seeing  pictures  glow 
with  sudden  color  between  the  sprawling  lines, 
the  old  days  have  taken  form  again  from  the 
confusion  of  his  crowded  memories  and  the  ex- 
hilaration of  that  famous  year  sets  his  heart 
beating  faster  for  a  while.  So  may  those  who 
shared  the  time  with  him  share,  too,  something 
of  the  pleasure  of  this  retrospect,  and  in  the 
kindly  interest  given  us  by  those  for  whom  this 
book  is  equally  Intended,  may  we  feel,  perhaps, 

"That  we  are  known  and  loved  there,  still, 
Though  we  come  back  no  more !" 


^    Of  THE     ^ 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


EARLY   LIFE   AT   THE    UNIVERSITY 
OUTSIDE  THE  DORMI- 
TORIES. 

Francis  J.  Batchelder. 

W^fc-^HERE  was  a  time  at  Stanford  Unlver- 
■  ^  j  sity  when  living  anywhere  was  a  serious 
^^^X  problem.  The  few  who  arrived  on  the 
campus  the  summer  preceding  the  opening 
found  no  provision  for  their  coming  and  no  con- 
venient or  comfortable  accommodations  for  liv-. 
ing.  A  few  words  about  this  antediluvian 
period,  before  the  flood  of  students  necessitated 
a  solution  of  the  living  problem,  may  throw 
some  light  on  the  subject  of  student  life  outside 
the  dormitories. 

When  the  writer  first  came  to  Stanford,  early 
in  July  of  1892,  Encina  and  Roble  were  yet  un- 
finished and  the  present  beautiful  campus  vil- 
lage had  barely  been  commenced.  A  bleak  row 
of  cheap,  shadeless  houses  was  hastily  rising 
from  the  plain,  in  order  that  the  faculty  families 
when  they  should  come,  might  not  have  to  live 
in  tents.  Palo  Alto  was  a  town  only  in  the  vis- 
ion of  the  real  estate  agents  who  were  booming 
town  lots  there.     At  that  time  there  were  but 


95       THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

three  or  four  houses  scattered  at  long  intervals 
between  Menlo  Park  and  Mayfield.  The  Palo 
Alto  Station  was  a  little  mushroom-like  shed 
built  around  the  trunk  of  an  oak  tree,  at  which 
there  stopped  only  a  train  or  two  each  way  a 
day.  Owing  to  conditions  in  the  towns  of  Menlo 
Park  and  Mayfield,  to  select  either  one  as  a 
place  of  residence  was  like  choosing  between 
Scylla  and  Charybdis.  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Jordan,  liv- 
ing in  Escondite  Cottage,  had  the  only  house 
that  was  available  on  the  campus  at  the  very  first 
of  the  summer,  and  hospitably  took  in  with  them 
the  first  few  comers  until  the  latter  could  make 
some  other  arrangements.  That  meant,  per- 
force, going  either  to  Menlo  Park  or  Mayfield. 
Walking  back  and  forth  was  in  vogue.  The 
now  omnipresent  bus  driver  had  not  then  devel- 
oped out  of  the  pupal  stage.  Mr.  Jasper  Paul- 
sen, who  had  a  livery  stable  in  Mayfield,  was 
the  first  to  wake  up  to  the  busman's  opportun- 
ity. About  the  time  the  University  opened  he 
moved  his  business  to  Palo  Alto,  bought  an 
enormous  bus,  and  did  most  of  the  business  of 
carrying  passengers  from  the  railroad  to  the 
University. 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  97 

Early  in  August  of  that  summer  two  young 
women  from  Radcliffe  College,  Miss  Lucy 
Fletcher  and  Miss  Eleanor  Pearson,  came  on  to 
open  a  preparatory  school  for  girls.  Having 
leased  Adelante  Villa,  back  in  the  hills,  they 
opened  it  as  a  boarding  house  until  their  school 
year  should  begin.  There  was  an  almost  uni- 
versal desertion  of  Menlo  Park  and  Mayfield 
on  the  part  of  such  members  of  the  faculty  and 
students  as  had  arrived,  and  the  two  miles'  walk 
each  way  seemed  a  small  matter  alongside  of  the 
very  superior  accommodations  which  Adelante 
provided.  Here  quite  a  little  summer  colony 
lived  until  Encina  and  Roble  were  opened. 

The  two  dormitories  had  plenty  of  rooms  for 
all  the  students  who  registered  the  first  year,  yet 
before  that  year  was  over  some  of  the  students 
began  to  seek  other  lodging  places;  or,  pos- 
sibly it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  they 
sought  other  eating  places,  for  it  was  the  ques- 
tion of  food  more  than  anything  else  that  caused 
dissatisfaction  with  Encina.  Cold  soup,  tough 
and  dry  meat  and  continual  prunes  cast  a  shadow 
on  the  pleasures  of  Encina  Hall,  so  that 
there  began  an  emigration  thence.  A  few  went 
to  the  Row  to  live  with  the  faculty,  a  few  to 


9  8       THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

"the  Camp,"  a  few  to  Mayfield  and  to  Menlo 
Park  and  an  increasing  number  to  Palo  Alto, 
which,  by  this  time,  had  begun  to  be  a  village, 
though  still  a  very  small  one.  A  note  in  the 
Daily  Palo  Alto,  in  September,  1892,  says, 
"Mayfield  is  full  of  college  students." 

"The  Camp"  was  an  institution  which  calls 
for  description.  Originally  built  for  the  accom- 
modation of  workmen  on  the  buildings,  it  came 
to  have  a  good  deal  of  patronage  from  the  stu- 
dents. It  was  simply  a  group  of  very  cheap, 
one-story,  white  buildings  nearly  enclosing  a 
square,  which  stood  back  of  the  Quadrangle, 
just  west  of  what  is  now  called  Lasuen  Street. 
Many  students  began  taking  their  meals  at  the 
camp  table.  The  fare  was  coarse,  but  there 
was  plenty  of  it  and  it  was  hot.  A  big  iron  tri- 
angle hanging  inside  the  camp  enclosure  used  to 
announce  to  all  the  campus  that  "Grub  is  ready 
at  the  camp."  This  was,  at  first,  the  only  place 
where  visitors  to  the  campus  could  get  meals, 
as  students  were  not  allowed  to  take  guests  to 
the  table  at  Encina  and  the  Stanford  Inn  had 
not  even  been  thought  of.  Of  the  students  who 
took  their  meals  at  the  Camp,  a  very  much 
smaller  number  lived  there  as  well.      Two  en- 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  99 

terprising  and  economical  fellows  built  a  little 
two-roomed  house  inside  the  camp  square  and 
did  their  own  cooking.  Another  fellow  who 
lived  in  one  of  the  camp  buildings,  which  stood 
up  off  the  ground  a  little  way  and  was  open  un- 
derneath, is  said  to  have  set  snares  through  a 
trap  door  in  his  floor  for  unwary  chickens  that 
came  for  pickings  about  the  camp.  It  is  further 
said  that  he  often  got  the  cook  to  prepare  a 
chicken  for  his  dinner. 

Late  in  the  initial  college  year  the  first  move 
was  made  toward  securing  fraternity  houses. 
Several  fraternities  had  been  organized  much 
earlier  in  the  year,  but  the  house  problem  was 
too  serious  for  immediate  solution.  House  ac- 
commodations on  the  campus  were  overstrained 
for  the  faculty ;  Palo  Alto  was  so  new  that  there 
were  no  houses  for  rent  there  at  all  suitable  for 
fraternity  homes ;  and  there  were  no  rich  alumni 
members  to  help  out  with  building  plans. 

In  the  spring  of  1892,  the  University  began 
erecting  on  the  campus  a  large  club  house, 
known  as  Lauro  Hall,  for  the  unmarried  pro- 
fessors who  were  then  living  in  Encina.  But  be- 
fore this  house  was  completed  it  was  found  that 
the  professors  for  whom  it  was  intended  were 


loo    THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

too  few  to  wish  to  assume  the  $ioo  a  month 
rental  asked  by  the  business  office.  Here  was 
an  opportunity  which  one  fraternity  immediately 
took  advantage  of.  Phi  Delta  Theta  applied 
for  the  house,  agreeing  to  let  the  unmarried  pro- 
fessors have  certain  of  the  suites.  The  arrange- 
ment was  not  quite  so  satisfactory  as  having  a 
little  smaller  house,  built  especially  for  a  chap- 
ter house,  which  they  could  occupy  all  by  them- 
selves; still,  it  was  the  first  house  secured  by  any 
Stanford  chapter,  it  was  on  the  campus,  near  the 
Quad,  had  plenty  of  rooms  for  expansion  and 
was  secured  without  incurring  heavy  debt.  A 
few  hundred  dollars,  only,  had  to  be  borrowed 
for  the  purpose  of  furnishing.  Lauro  Hall, 
later  re-named  Madrono,  answered  the  purpose 
very  well  until  a  more  suitable  fraternity  house 
could  be  obtained,  and  many  enjoyable  social 
times  were  had  there  which  would  not  have  been 
possible  in  Encina. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  university  year 
Kappa  Alpha  Theta  moved  into  a  large,  old- 
fashioned  house  close  to  the  railroad  on  the  edge 
of  Mayfield,  in  what  was  known  as  ''The 
Grove,"  which  they  rented  from  Mr.  Peer.  It 
was  a  *long  distance  from  the  University,  but  in- 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  loi 

conveniences  in  those  pioneer  days  were  accepted 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  girls  fur- 
nished their  own  rooms,  and  $100  was  borrowed 
for  the  general  furnishing.  One  of  the  early 
Thetas  said  they  felt  they  were  assuming  a 
great  risk  by  contracting  this  debt  of  a  hundred 
dollars.  Their  own  ingenuity  and  dexterity 
helped  them  a  great  deal,  so  that  they  soon  had 
the  house  comfortable  and  homelike.  An  inter- 
esting picture  of  this  period  is  given  by  the  fol- 
lowing extracts  written  home  by  one  who  soon 
after  became  a  Theta. 

"September  8,  1892.— The  K.  A.  T.  frat. 
have  their  house  over  near  Mayfield — a  large 
house  in  a  pleasant  yard.  They  are  going  to  put 
in  $20  a  month  and  live  on  that.  The  hall  is 
being  emptied  of  the  old  girls.  *  *  *  They 
are  rather  unsettled  and  roughing  it.  M —  is 
to  room  with  E —  S — .  They  have  a  pleasant 
room  with  matting  on  the  floor,  and  l3ed,  table 
and  stand,  chairs  and  made  washstand,  which 
E —  furnished,  and  they  will  soon  have  a  nice 
room.  They  (the  frat.)  borrowed  money  for 
the  general  furnishing,  and  if  they  can  save  the 
money,  will  pay  the  bill  in  that  way.  They  are 
all  cleaning  and  working  like  Turks  and  are  very 


I02     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

interested  and  enthusiastic.  E —  manages  and 
has  a  cook,  but  she*  is  green,  yet  is  willing  and 
can  soon  learn." 

"September  ii,  1892. — ^The  girls  are  work- 
ing quite  hard  to  get  their  house  in  order,  but 
are  progressing  very  well.  They  have  cleaned 
the  yard,  scrubbed  floors  and  painted  them, 
made  and  hung  draperies,  and  with  their  walk 
(when  they  fail  to  find  the  bus)  they  are  rather 
tired." 

The  branch  railroad,  which  in  those  days  lay 
in  front  of  Encina,  and  ran  close  by  the  grove, 
was  the  ordinary  foot-way  between  those  two 
points  and  was  a  much  used  path,  for  the  ties 
that  joined  the  Theta  house  with  Encina  and 
Lauro  were  of  two  kinds.  Some  of  the  boys  got 
to  know  the  way  very  well  indeed. 

When  the  weather  was  fine  it  was  a  pleasant 
journey  from  the  grove  to  the  University,  either 
by  bus  or  by  foot.  An  arrangement  was  made 
with  the  Mayfield  bus  for  daily  transportation 
at  a  reasonable  monthly  rate,  but  if  the  girls 
were  not  on  hand  when  the  bus  left,  they  had  to 
go  on  foot,  and  when  the  rains  began  this  was 
not  quite  agreeable.     They  stood  it,  however, 


*  The  cook,  it  is  to  be  supposed ! 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  103 

for  a  year  or  two,  then  moved  Into  a  house  on 
the  campus,  next  door  to  Dr.  Stillman,  at  the 
Quad  end  of  Alvarado  Row. 

"Last  Saturdays"  were  the  "at  home"  days 
for  Kappa  Alpha  Theta,  even  while  in  Roble, 
and  this  custom  has  been  kept  up  now  for  more 
than  ten  years. 

At  about  the  same  time  the  Thetas  moved 
into  their  rented  house  in  the  grove,  the  Phi 
Gamma  Delta  fraternity  moved  Into  a  pretty 
chapter  house  close  to  them,  which  had  been 
built  during  the  summer.  Here,  in  spite  of  the 
distance,  they  entertained  a  good  deal,  and  the 
pleasant  dances  at  their  house  are  well  remem- 
bered. 

Phi  Kappa  PsI  came  next  with  a  large,  well- 
planned  and  beautifully  furnished  chapter 
house  on  the  highest  point  in  College  Terrace. 
Ground  for  this  $8,000  house  was  broken  in 
September,  1892,  and  the  fraternity  moved  in 
late  the  following  spring.  It  should  be  borne  In 
mind  that  when  the  University  started,  there 
was  about  an  even  chance  whether  the  inevitable 
college  town  would  spring  up  at  College  Terrace 
or  at  Palo  Alto.  About  as  many  town  lots  were 
being  sold  in  one  tract  as  In  the  other.     Palo 


104     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Alto  lay  closer  to  the  railroad,  but  College  Ter- 
race had  more  slope,  prettier  views  and  was  a 
trifle  nearer  the  University  buildings.  Many  of 
the  professors  bought  lots  there  and  some  built 
houses.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore, 
that  the  Phi  Psis  mistook  this  for  the  coming 
village.  But  the  College  Terrace  boom  died 
and  the  Phi  Psis  had  their  house  moved  to  Palo 
Alto. 

It  had  been  the  expressed  wish  of  the  founders 
of  the  University,  during  the  first  year,  that  there 
should  be  little  or  no  trend  toward  society  life, 
so  that  the  precedent  set  for  the  future  years 
might  be  that  of  hard,  conscientious  work.  To 
that  end  mixed  dancing  was  forbidden  at  En- 
cina  and  Roble,  and  until  the  latter  end  of  the 
first  year  there  were  no  large  parties  and  but  few 
small  ones.  Then  Phi  Kappa  Psi  woke  things 
up  a  little  by  giving  a  banquet  at  the  Vendome 
in  San  Jose.  There  was  a  dance  at  Adelante 
Villa  and  a  larger  one  at  Roble,  Mrs.  Stanford's 
consent  to  the  latter  having  been  obtained. 
There  was  also  at  Roble  a  Martha  Washington 
party  that  went  off  particularly  well,  reflecting 
credit  on  those  who  had  gotten  it  up. 

An  institution  of  the  first  year  was  the  *'Fac- 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  105 

ulty  At  Homes."  The  families  of  Alvarado  Row 
were  divided  up  Into  two  sections  and  cards  were 
sent  out  to  all  the  students  announcing  that  one 
group  would  be  glad  to  receive  them  at  their 
homes  the  first  and  third  Friday  evenings  of  the 
month;  the  other  group  on  the  second  and 
fourth  Friday  evenings.  These  were  very  largely 
attended  for  a  time,  for  everybody  went  every- 
where until  they  found  out  where  they  had  the 
best  time;  then  these  "Faculty  At  Homes" 
settled  down  to  be  smaller  gatherings  of  students 
and  faculty  who  had  some  common  Interests 
either  of  work  or  of  tastes  and  inclination.  By 
and  by  one  could  reasonably  expect  to  meet  cer- 
tain people  at  certain  places.  One  got  to  know 
the  faculty  much  better  than  could  ever  be  pos- 
sible in  the  class  room,  and  from  those  evenings 
sprang  up  many  lasting  friendships  between 
faculty  and  students. 

The  social  life  at  the  University  was  quick- 
ened during  the  second  year  by  the  fraternities, 
for  as  soon  as  they  secured  houses  they  began 
to  entertain,  and  the  dinners,  receptions  and 
dances  which  they  gave  added  a  new  and  enjoy- 
able element  to  the  University  life.  Mixed 
dancing,  which  was  prohibited  at  the  Encina  and 


1 06     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

Roble  receptions,  had  no  such  bans  in  the  fra- 
ternity houses.  There  were  the  K.  A.  T.  at 
homes  on  last  Saturdays  and  their  Hallowe'en 
party,  either  a  card  party  or  a  dance  given  by 
Phi  Delta  Theta  in  Lauro  Hall  once  a  month 
with  a  general  reception  to  the  University  in 
May,  parties  in  the  Phi  Gamma  Delta  house  in 
the  grove,  dances  given  by  Sigma  Alpha  Epsi- 
lon,  a  Kappa  Kappa  Gamma  party  in  Oakland 
at  the  home  of  the  Misses  Chapman,  a  hop  given 
by  Zeta  Psi  at  the  Vendome,  with  a  special  train, 
and  the  Phi  Kappa  Psi  housewarming,  with  card 
parties  and  dances  at  intervals  later. 

The  Junior  and  Senior  classes  both  gave  hops 
this  year,  in  Encina  Gymnasium,  thus  inaugura- 
ting the  custom  of  annual  hops  that  has  continued 
ever  since.  The  Junior  ball  was,  doubtless,  the 
biggest  social  event  of  the  year.  It  was  an  in- 
vitation party  exclusively,  the  boys  being  invited 
by  the  Junior  Committee  and  each  one  having 
the  privilege  of  bringing  a  lady.  It  brought  to- 
gether the  dressiest  crowd  that  had  been  seen  at 
Stanford,  and  was  altogether  so  nicely  managed 
as  to  deserve  special  mention. 

A  very  elaborate  "Butterfly  Party''  was  given 
at  Mariposa   Hall  by   Miss  Dickenson,   there 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  UNIVERSITY  107 

were  frequent  afternoon  teas  presided  over  by 
the  wives  of  the  faculty,  and  another  delightful 
social  feature  of  this  year  were  the  receptions 
and  parties  given  by  Mrs.  J.  M.  Braly,  who  had 
taken  Prof.  Griffin's  house  in  the  Row  while  her 
two  daughters  were  attending  the  University. 

Picnics  were  quite  popular.  Almost  every 
Saturday  some  crowd  started  off  to  the  hills  or 
mountains  for  a  picnic.  Sometimes  they  walked, 
sometimes  they  went  in  any  sort  of  conveyances 
that  could  be  secured.  On  several  occasions 
these  picnics  were  extended  to  three  or  four 
days  in  length,  for  trips  to  Mt.  Hamilton,  La 
Honda  or  Pescadero.  One  party  of  a  dozen  or 
so,  with  Mrs.  Fyffe  from  the  Theta  house  for 
chaperone,  spent  Thanksgiving  vacation  at  the 
Monroe  Ranch,  on  the  mountains,  above  Sears- 
ville,  taking  turkeys  and  other  good  things  with 
them  and  preparing  their  own  Thanksgiving 
feast.  Even  the  University  authorities  had  the 
picnic  spirit  and  arranged  excursions  for  the  an- 
niversary of  the  birth  of  Leland  Stanford,  Jr. 
The  first  of  these  had  a  special  train  to  Monte- 
rey; about  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  students 
and  faculty  went,  and  had  a  long-to-be-remem- 
bered good  time. 


io8     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

The  earliest  years  at  Stanford  were  marked 
by  many  of  the  things  which  characterize  pio- 
neer days  anywhere.  There  was  a  little  less  con- 
straint, a  little  more  informality,  and  something 
more  of  universality  in  all  that  took  place,  as 
compared  with  later  years,  all  of  which  gave  to 
those  first  years  a  spirit  that  was  pleasingly 
democratic. 


NOTES  ON  THE  EARLY  ORGANIZA- 
TIONS AT  STANFORD. 

Francis  J.  Batchelder,  '04. 

^^^fc^HE  very  first  year  of  the  history  of  Stan- 
■  ^J  ford  University  was  especially  a  year 
^^^r  of  organizations.  In  that  respect  it 
can  never  be  duplicated.  The  buildings  were 
ready  and  the  faculty  and  students  were  on  the 
ground,  but  "the  university''  had  yet  to  be  made. 
An  essential  part  of  the  making  was  the  student 
organizations.  Those  who  come  to  the  Univer- 
sity now  and  find  everything  in  working  order 
have  but  to  adjust  themselves  to  existing  condi- 
tions, fit  in  with  them  as  well  as  they  can,  or  at 
most  help  to  re-adjust  them  if  they  get  too  badly 
out  of  gear.  But  in  the  first  year  the  conditions 
of  university  life  had  to  be  made,  precedents 
established,  college  spirit  inaugurated  and  the 
undoing  of  Berkeley  in  athletics  and  debating, 
planned  and  begun. 

Imagine  a  state  of  things  with  no  college 
papers,  no  university  or  class  yells,  no  college 
songs,  no  football  or  baseball  teams,  no  dia- 
mond, no  football  field,  no  track,  no  bleachers, 
no  athletic  association,  no  tennis  courts,  no  stu- 


1 1  o    THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

dent  body,  no  debating  or  literary  societies,  no 
fraternities  or  sororities — no  organizations  of 
any  kind — no  postoffice,  no  book  store,  no  place 
to  room  or  board  save  Encina  and  Roble,  no 
houses  except  in  one  short,  barren  row,  occupied 
exclusively  by  the  faculty.  Imagine  such  a  con- 
dition and  you  will  have  some  idea  of  what  life 
at  the  University  was  like  during  the  first  few 
weeks  of  its  existence.  Most  of  these  desirable 
things  which  add  so  much  to  the  zest  of  uni- 
versity life  were  started  by  the  first  year  stu- 
dents, and,  considering  the  number  of  things  to 
be  done,  it  did  not  take  those  early  students 
long  to  do  them. 

ASSOCIATED  STUDENTS. 

The  first  move  in  that  direction  was  the  or- 
ganization of  the  student  body,  or  "Associated 
Students,"  as  it  was  then  called.  A  preliminary 
meeting  was  held,  October  9,  1891,  and  per- 
manent organization  effected,  October  20th, 
with  Charles  Chadsey  as  president;  Carl  S. 
Smith,  vice-president;  Miss  Martha  Haven, 
secretary;  Archie  Rice,  treasurer. 

In  order  to  handle  quickly  the  vast  amount  of 
heavy  work  which  called  for  immediate  atten- 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  iii 

tlon,  committees  were  appointed  to  formulate 
plans  and  to  make  their  reports  to  the  main 
body  In  such  a  complete  manner  that  they  would 
have  only  to  be  approved  and  could  be  put  Im- 
mediately Into  effect.  As  much  of  the  work 
which  these  committees  did  was  permanent  work 
and  has  come  down  as  an  Inheritance  through 
the  Intervening  years,  It  may  be  of  some  historic 
Interest  to  mention  the  persons  who  composed 
these  committees.    These  were  as  follows : 

Constitution  and  By-Laws. — J.  K.  Wight, 
P.  S.  Castleman,  R.  T.  Buchanan,  H.  Tilden, 
W.  C.  Hazzard. 

Co-op.  Association. — A.  J.  Brown,  R.  L. 
Brown,  E.  R.  ZIon,  C.  C.  Adams. 

Colors.— C.  J.  MIchener,  Miss  H.  Fyffe,  W. 
G.  Young. 

University  Yell. — E.  D.  Lewis,  J.  C.  Capron, 
L.  V.  W.  Brown,  E.  R.  Hill,  Miss  Bertha  de 
Laguna. 

Bulletin  Board. — W.  B.  Moulton,  G.  Cal- 
houn, Miss  K.  Evans. 

College  Paper. — A.  V.  Busby,  G.  A.  Law- 
rence, H.  T.  Trumbo,  C.  B.  Whittler,  Miss 
Edith  Wilcox. 

Officers  of  the  Associated  Students  for  the 


1 1 2    THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

second  year  were:  W.  S.  Webster,  president; 
W.  B.  Moulton,  vice-president;  Miss  Lucile 
Eaves,  secretary;  S.  W.  Collins,  treasurer; 
T.  G.  Russell,  sergeant-at-arms. 

CLASS  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Class  organizations  quickly  followed  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Associated  Students.  The 
Class  of  '95  was  the  first  freshman  class  at  the 
University,  but  was  not  the  only  class  the  first 
year.  Many  students  had  been  attracted  hither 
from  other  colleges:  and  had  been  given  ad- 
vanced standing,  so  that  from  the  very  start 
there  was  a  senior,  a  junior  and  a  sophomore 
class  as  well  as  a  freshman  class,  the  three  higher 
classes  numbering,  perhaps,  twenty  to  fifty  stu- 
dents each.  These  all  promptly  effected  class 
organizations.  The  freshman  class,  being  the 
newest  to  college  ways,  was  the  slowest  to  do 
this,  but  with  the  help  of  the  sophomores  they 
finally  succeeded.  The  first  class  officers  elected 
were  as  follows: 

Class  of  ^g2. — C.  E.  Chadsey,  president;  F. 
G.  Burrows,  vice-president;  Miss  Edith  Wilcox, 
secretary;  V.  C.  Richards,  treasurer;  F.  J.  Den- 
nis, sergeant-at-arms. 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  113 

Class  of  *gs- — H.  R.  Timm,  president;  Carl 
S.  Smith,  vice-president;  Miss  Bertha  de  La- 
guna,  secretary;  J.  H.  Thaxter,  treasurer;  J.  A. 
Newell,  sergeant-at-arms. 

Class  of  ^g4, — Holbrook  Blinn,  president;  F. 
H.  Hadley,  vice-president;  G.  H.  Brown,  secre- 
tary; M.  D.  Hall,  treasurer;  J.  H.  Crossett, 
sergeant-at-arms. 

Class  of  '95. — C.  C.  Adams,  president;  F.  R. 
Dray,  vice-president;  Miss  B.  M.  Burkhalter, 
second  vice-president;  C.  C.  Hughes,  recording 
secretary;  Miss  Evans,  corresponding  secretary; 
W.  C.  Hazzard,  sergeant-at-arms;  L.  A.  Smith, 
baseball  manager;  E.  L.  Rosenfeld,  football 
manager. 

ALUMNI  ASSOCIATION. 

No  sooner  were  the  first  diplomas  handed  out 
than  the  recipients  got  together  and  started  the 
Alumni  Association,  on  June  15,  1892,  with  the 
following  officers :  Chas.  K.  Jenness,  president ; 
Willis  G.  Johnson,  vice-president;  Nancy  M. 
Woodward,  secretary;  Alvah  B.  Thompson, 
treasurer. 


1 1 4     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 


COLLEGE   PAPERS. 

An  attempt  was  made  to  have  the  Associated 
Students  adopt  as  the  regularly  sanctioned  Uni- 
versity paper,  a  monthly  publication  which  had 
already  been  started  by  an  enterprising  student. 
He  wished  to  be  retained  as  editor-in-chief  and 
business  manager,  and  to  have  the  Associated 
Students  confirm  the  staff  of  assistants  whom  he 
had  already  selected  and  announced.  His  slate 
did  not  go  through,  yet  he  continued  through- 
out the  year  to  publish  his  monthly,  named  The 
Palo  Alto.  The  work  of  the  Committee  on 
College  Paper  led  to  the  establishment  of  The 
Sequoia,  as  the  first  authorized  Stanford  periodi- 
cal. Watson  Nicholson  was  the  first  editor-in- 
chief,  and  C.  B.  Whittler  the  first  business 
manager.  The  paper  made  Its  Initial  appear- 
ance on  December  9,  1891.  There  being  no 
University  press  nor  any  printing  office  at  Palo 
Alto  when  The  Sequoia  was  started,  it  was 
printed  for  the  first  two  years  or  more  of  its  life 
at  San  Jose.  The  editor's  office  was  in  the 
crown  of  his  hat  except  when  he  chose  to  share 
with  the  business  manager  a  dark  little  hole, 
about  three  by  six,  at  the  end  of  the  Co-op  Build- 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  115 

ing,  used  for  storing  and  mailing  copies  of  the 
paper. 

The  Daily  Palo  Alto  was  not  started  until  the 
beginning  of  the  second  year.  The  privately 
printed  monthly  Palo  Alto  was  then  defunct, 
and  the  name  was  confiscated.  The  first  editor- 
in-chief  was  John  C.  Capron,  of  the  Class  of 
'93.  Carl  S.  Smith  and  John  A.  Keating  were 
associate  editors.  Houghton  Sawyer,  '95,  was 
the  first  business  manager.  In  the  University 
library,  in  the  front  of  Vol.  I.  of  The  Daily  Palo 
Alto,  there  is  a  rough  proof  of  the  first  issue, 
with  a  typewritten  note  attached,  which  reads  as 
follows : 

"This  is  the  first  impression  ever  made  of  The 
Daily  Palo  Alto.  It  is  the  first  proof-sheet 
made  by  the  printer  after  the  form  was  locked 
and  ready  to  go  to  press,  and  was  taken  at  1 135 
a.  m.,  Tuesday,  September  20,  1892,  in  the  office 
of  the  Redwood  City  Democrat,  where  The 
Daily  Palo  Alto  was  published  for  the  first  two 
weeks  of  its  existence. 

"Carl  S.  Smith." 

Early  in  October  of  the  same  year,  the  Palo 
Alto  was  established  in  permanent  quarters, 
largely  due  to  the  efforts  of  J.  A.  Quelle,  '95, 


1 1 6    THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

who  became  superintendent  of  the  printing  de- 
partment. At  about  the  same  time  J.  C.  Capron 
resigned,  Carl  S.  Smith  became  editor-in-chief 
and  J.  F.  Wilson,  business  manager. 

CO-OP.  ASSOCIATION. 

I  do  not  remember  where  we  got  our  books 
and  stationery  before  the  Co-Op.  was  started. 
The  incorporation  of  that  useful  institution  did 
not  take  place  until  December  7,  1891,  although 
it  was  organized  a  month  previous.  It  was  cap- 
italized at  $10,000,  divided  into  four  hundred 
shares  at  $2.50  each,  for  which  the  students  and 
faculty  subscribed.  The  period  of  incorporation 
was  for  fifty  years,  and  the  officers  during  the 
first  two  years  were : 

i8gi-2, — C.  L.  Clemens,  president;  A.  J. 
Brown,  manager. 

i8g2-S' — ^A.  J.  Brown,  president;  E.  L. 
Rich,  manager. 

A  small  wooden  building  was  erected  for  the 
use  of  the  Co-Op.  Store  about  opposite  where 
the  Inn  now  stands,  a  small  room  being  parti- 
tioned off  at  one  end  for  the  Sequoia  office.  The 
shareholders  never  had  to  stand  an  assessment, 
and  when,  for  some  reason,  it  was  decided  to  dis- 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  117 

continue    the   organization,    the    value    of   the 
shares  was  returned  to  the  stockholders. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS. 

One  of  the  first  organizations  established  was 
the  University  Christian  Association,  which  in- 
cluded both  men  and  women  and  was  modeled 
somewhat  after  the  plan  of  the  Cornell  Uni- 
versity Christian  Association,  admitting  to 
membership  both  men  and  women  and  having 
no  test  as  to  orthodoxy  of  belief.  This  was 
after  much  discussion  as  to  just  what  sort  of  a 
religious  association  among  the  students  would 
be  the  most  useful  in  the  life  of  the  Uni- 
versity. There  were  many  adherents  of  the 
regular  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  Y.  W.  C.  A.,  there  was 
strong  sentiment,  but  the  prevailing  sentiment 
seemed  to  be  in  favor  of  an  organization  along 
broader  lines,  and  this  prevailed. 

The  constitution  of  the  association  was 
adopted  November  14,  1891,  and  the  first  offi- 
cers chosen  were:  H.  D.  Stearns,  president; 
Miss  Bertha  de  Laguna,  vice-president;  L.  M. 
Burwell,  vice-president;  C.  Dalzell,  secretary; 
F.  J.  Batchelder,  treasurer. 

The  plan  of  the  association  provided  for  two 


1 1 8     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

public  services  weekly,  a  service  of  song  and 
conference  on  Sunday  evenings  at  7  :oo,  and  a 
service  of  prayer  and  conference  on  Wednes- 
day evenings  at  6:45,  both  held  in  the  chapel. 
A  plan  for  Bible  study  classes  finally  led  to  the 
organization  of  a  Sunday-school.  Prof.  F.  H. 
Clark  was  made  superintendent,  with  W.  B. 
Moulton  and  Miss  Cory  as  assistants;  Miss 
Mary  Martin,  secretary,  and  Mr.  T.  R.  War- 
ren, treasurer.  This  Sunday-school  met  every 
Sunday  afternoon,  assembling  in  the  chapel  for 
opening  exercises,  then  separating  to  various 
classrooms  in  the  Quad  for  study  along  diverse 
lines.  Some  of  the  classes  were  led  by  profes- 
sors, some  by  students,  and  some  were  organized 
as  seminaries  of  which  different  members  took 
charge  in  turn.  These  Sunday  classes  were  at- 
tended by  about  a  hundred  oi  the  faculty  and 
students. 

The  Sunday  evening  meetings  also  were  very 
well  attended,  the  chapel  being  sometimes  pretty 
well  filled.  The  meetings  were  led  in  turn  by 
various  members  of  the  association  or  by  visitors 
to  the  University.  This  was  an  activity  that 
sprang  from  the  students  and  so  engaged  their 
hearty  interest  and  co-operation. 


EARLY  ORGAN IZA  TIONS  1 19 

Those  who  had  advocated  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and 
a  Y.  W.  C.  A.  did  not  entirely  give  up  their 
preference,  so  it  came  about  that  a  meeting  was 
called  on  February  i,  1892,  to  discuss  forming 
a  regular  Y.  M.  C.  A.  It  was  addressed  by  Mr. 
John  L.  Mott,  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  International 
Committee,  whose  arguments  were  found  so 
good  that  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  a  Y.  W.  C.  A. 
were  soon  established,  to  work  in  harmony  and 
conjunction  with  the  larger  and  broader  Uni- 
versity Christian  Association.  From  that  time 
on,  these  newer  organizations  held  Wednesday 
evening  meetings  in  the  lobbies  at  Roble  and 
Encina,  taking  the  place  of  the  former  Wednes- 
day evening  prayer  meetings  in  the  chapel.  W. 
G.  Johnson  was  first  president  of  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  and  Miss  Lucy  Allabach  first  president 
of  the  Y.  W.  C.  A. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  year  the  three 
Christian  Associations  united  in  getting  out  a 
handbook  for  new  students,  and  established  the 
custom  of  receptions  to  the  new  students  during 
the  first  week  of  the  college  year.  The  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  also  extended  its  work  into  Mayfield, 
where  meetings  for  men  were  held  Sunday  after- 
noons    in     Dornberger's     Hall.      Both     the 


120    THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 


Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  the  Y.  W.  C.  A.  sent  delegates 
to  the  State  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Convention  which  met 
in  Pasadena  in  the  fall  of  '92. 

students'  congress. 

Another  organization  of  very  general  inter- 
est was  the  Students'  Congress,  organized  De- 
cember 16,  1 89 1,  for  the  discussion  and  debate 
of  political  and  economic  questions.  It  was  or- 
ganized along  the  lines  of  the  National  House 
of  Representatives,  with  its  committee  system. 
Prof.  George  E.  Howard  was  unanimously 
elected  President  of  the  United  States,  A.  J. 
Brown  was  installed  as  Speaker  of  the  House 
and  H.  T.  Trumbo  as  Clerk.  For  the  second 
semester  J.  D.  Wallingford  was  Speaker  and 
Walter  M.  Rose,  Clerk.  The  second  year  Prof. 
F.  C.  Clark  was  President,  and  R.  L.  Gruwell 
and  E.  H.  Hughes,  Speakers  for  the  two  semes- 
ters. The  members  of  this  Students'  Congress 
elected  themselves  to  represent  any  part  of  the 
country  they  saw  fit,  and  were  free  to  choose 
any  party.  This  choice  was  often  made  with 
more  of  an  eye  to  interest  of  debate  than  to  seri- 
ous political  conviction.  Almost  every  question 
of  any  public  interest  under  the  sun  was  dragged 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  121 

forth  and  debated  to  a  finish  on  the  floor  of  this 
Congress.  Some  of  the  sessions  were  really 
very  interesting,  and  warm.  The  Congress  met 
in  the  chapel. 

LITERARY  AND  DEBATING  SOCIETIES. 

The  first  of  the  literary  societies  organized  at 
Stanford  was  appropriately  named  ''Alpha/' 
extemporaneous  speaking  and  debating  being  Its 
main  objects.  Its  career  commenced  in  Octo- 
ber, 1 89 1,  with  the  following  officers:  Presi- 
dent, A.  J.  Brown;  vice-president,  A.  C. 
Trumbo;  secretary,  C.  J.  Newman;  treasurer, 
Samuel  Piatt. 

In  February,  1892,  "Alpha"  was  re-organ- 
ized and  women  were  admitted.  A  vivid  de- 
scription of  this  stage  of  its  life  is  given  by  Dr. 
Fred  G.  Burrows: 

"The  avowed  object  of  the  society,  as  I  remem- 
ber it,  was  a  combined  literary  and  social  organiza- 
tion. The  real  object,  I  think,  was  to  afford  some 
of  the  members  an  excuse  to  meet  and  'spoon.'  I 
think  A.  J.  Brown  was  the  first  president,  and  Ban- 
nister the  second.  The  first  program  in  my  note- 
book was  given  March  11,  1892,  and  is  as  follows: 
Debate,  Gruwell  and  Miss  Burckhalter,  Walling- 
ford  and  Miss  Fyffe;  declamations.  Miss  Wilcox 
and  Olin  Marsh.    Oration,  Bannister. 


1 2  2     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

''Later  an  essay  was  added  to  the  above,  and  still 
later  I  believe  impromptu  speaking,  although  such 
are  not  outlined  or  mentioned  in  my  programs. 

"As  I  remember  it,  no  work  was  ever  done  in  the 
society.  The  boys  were  too  lazy  to  work;  they 
went  to  Alpha  to  talk  to  the  girls.  What  little 
work  was  done  in  such  organizations  was  done  in 
what  was  called  the  University  Senate.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  but  little  work  of  that  character  was 
done  in  those  days.  We,  from  U.  P.,  and  some 
others  had  suddenly  been  turned  loose.  We  were 
free  from  restraint  and  did  not  know  what  to  do 
with  our  freedom  nor  with  ourselves.  So  we  killed 
time  shamefully  and  went  driving  and  picnicking, 
etc.,  etc." 

Again,  in  the  fall  of  '92,  Alpha  was  re-or- 
ganized with  the  view  to  cutting  out  the  "fun/* 
and  getting  down  to  serious  work  in  speech 
making  and  debates,  all  meetings  to  be  open. 
But  the  period  which  Dr.  Burrows  describes 
was  the  most  characteristic  one  and  the  one  for 
which  Alpha  will  be  longest  remembered. 

Euphronia  Literary  Society,  which  still  ex- 
ists, began  its  life  in  January,  1893.  Its  early 
officers  were : 

i8g2-iSg3  (second  sem.) — President,  A.  M. 
Cathcart;  vice-president,  J.  A.  Gunn,  Jr.;  sec- 
retary, W.  C.  Taber;  treasurer,  B.  P.  Stanhope. 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  123 

i8g3'i8g4  (first  sem.) — President,  L.  J. 
Hinsdill;  (second  sem.) — President,  B.  F. 
Bledsoe. 

There  was  also  a  Law  and  Debating  Society, 
made  up  as  follows : 

President,  John  C.  Applewhite;  secretary,  J. 
A.  Hoshor;  treasurer,  P.  R.  Frost;  executive 
committee,  O.  D.  Richardson,  H.  S.  Hicks,  W. 
Charles. 

With  so  much  talent  preening  its  feathers  in 
these  various  debating  societies,  there  was  bound 
to  be  a  feeling  of  society  rivalry  which  at  last 
led  to  an  intersociety  debate  on  March  7,  1893, 
between  Congress  and!  Alpha,  over  this  ques- 
tion: 

Resolved,  That  the  Hawaiian  Islands  should 
be  annexed  to  the  United  States. 

On  the  affirmative  side,  representing  Cong- 
ress, were  W.  P.  Chamberlain  and  T.  R.  War- 
ren; on  the  negative,  representing  Alpha,  were 
A.  C.  Trumbo  and  J.  M.  Rhodes.  Professors 
Howard,  Swain  and  Marx  were  chosen  judges 
and  rendered  a  decision  for  the  affirmative  by  a 
vote  of  two  to  one. 

This  first  intersociety  debate  did  much  to 
create  general  university  interest  in  public  de- 


1 24    THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

bating,  so  that  when  an  intercollegiate  debate 
was  arranged  with  the  University  of  California 
it  was  regarded  as  almost  as  important  an  event 
as  the  big  football  game.  This  first  debate  be- 
tween teams  from  Stanford  and  the  University 
of  California,  which  has  been  held  annually  ever 
since,  was  held  in  Odd  Fellow's  Hall,  San  Fran- 
cisco, on  the  evening  of  April  22,  1893.  The 
choice  of  subjects  fell  to  the  Stanford  team, 
which  decided  to  use  the  subject  that  had  been 
so  well  gone  over  in  the  earlier  intersoclety  de- 
bate, namely: 

Resolved,  That  the  United  States  should  an- 
nex Hawaii. 

The  affirmative  was  ably  defended  by 
C.  A.  Reynolds,  C.  H.  Smith  and  L.  M. 
Solomons,  representing  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia ;  and  the  negative,  by  R.  L.  Gruwell,  A. 
H.  Barnhisel  and  L.  W.  Bannister,  of  Stanford. 
The  judges  of  the  debate  were  San  Francisco 
men.  Judge  W.  W.  Morrow,  Samuel  Knight 
and  Jackson  Hatch,  Judge  Morrow,  presiding. 
A  unanimous  decision  for  the  negative  was  ren- 
dered by  them,  and  Stanford  was  very  proud  of 
its  team. 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  125 

MUSICAL    ORGANIZATIONS. 

Musical  organizations  very  quickly  sprang 
up.  The  Sequoia  for  December  16,  1891,  an- 
nounced the  formation  of  a  university  orchestra 
of  eleven  members,  under  the  leadership  of  J. 
CI  Capron. 

At  about  the  same  time  was  formed  the  En- 
cinal  Glee  Club,  with  Shirley  Baker  as  president, 
L.  F.  Champion  as  secretary,  and  F.  H.  Hadley 
as  treasurer.  This  was,  however,  short-lived. 
In  1893  was  organized  another  University  Glee 
Club,  of  which  Shirley  Baker  was  president  and 
H.  J.  Cox,  manager,  which  met  with  greater 
success.  Following  their  first  concert  in  the 
Stanford  Chapel,  they  gave  concerts  in  the 
Congregational  Church  at  Sacramento,  the 
Opera  House  at  Napa,  and  in  the  Petaluma 
Theatre  at  Petaluma. 

Other  musical  organizations  were  a  Ladies' 
Glee  Club,  a  Mandolin  Club  and  a  Band,  the  lat- 
ter coming  into  being  in  September,  1893. 

DEPARTMENT  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Then,  too,  there  were  many  societies  organ- 
ized within  the  lines  of  university  departments, 
to  bring  together  students  and  faculty  outside 


126    THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

the  class  rooms  and  create  a  wider  and  deeper 
interest  in  the  work  which  the  students  were 
pursuing. 

Among  such  organizations,  one  of  the  first 
was  the  English  Club,  originated  by  instructors 
in  the  English  department. 

The  engineering  students  organized  an  En- 
gineering Society,  which  met  every  Saturday  eve- 
ning, at  which  papers  on  subjects  connected  with 
their  work  were  read  by  members.  This  so- 
ciety became  so  ambitious  as  to  appoint  a  com- 
mittee to  investigate  the  matter  of  establishing 
a  technical  paper  at  Stanford.  This  resulted  in 
a  plan  to  publish  a  semi-annual  magazine  de- 
voted to  the  interests  of  the  society,  with  a  staff 
consisting  of  Robert  M.  Drake,  W.  E.  Win- 
ship,  F.  L.  Cole,  S.  K.  Kenower,  R.  E.  May- 
nard.  As  far  as  the  writer  recollects,  however, 
this  plan  was  never  carried  out. 

Other  departmental  societies  that  actually 
came  into  being  were  the  Geology  and  the  Zo- 
ological Clubs,  whose  presidents  were,  respec- 
tively, C.  E.  Siebenthal  and  J.  Van  Denburgh; 
the  Biological  Society,  which  met  every  fort- 
night, and  the  Art  Society,  which  was  suspended 
after  a  brief  existence. 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  127 

Several  other  similar  organizations  were  dis- 
cussed, as  for  example,  a  Political  Science  Club, 
a  Physico-Chemical  Society  and  a  Philological 
Association. 

MISCELLANEOUS    ASSOCIATIONS. 

A  Gun  Club  was  started,  but  succumbed  be- 
fore arriving  at  maturity. 

The  Palo  Alto  Wheelmen  consisted  of  Prof. 

B.  C.  Brown,  L.  B.  Archer,  J.  E.  Alexander, 
W.  J.  Edwards  (who  later  became  quite  noted 
as  a  professional  racer),  J.  H.  Crosset  and  W. 

C.  Thompson.  The  "safety^'  bicycles  had  just 
come  into  use  and  those  who  had  them  were  en- 
thusiasts. 

Politics,  too,  received  a  good  share  of  atten- 
tion from  the  students,  especially  during  the 
Presidential  campaign  resulting  in  Cleveland's 
election  to  a  second  term.  There  was  both  a 
Republican  and  a  Democratic  Club  among  the 
Stanford  students.  John  R.  B.  Tregloan  was 
the  first  president  of  the  Republican  Club  and 
C.  H.  Hogg  its  second.  The  writer  does  not 
recall  the  president  of  the  Democratic  Club  dur- 
ing the  first  year,  but  W.  P.  Chamberlain  was 
president  for  the  year  1892-93,  with  J.  C.  Cap- 


128     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

ron,  vice-president,  W.  M.  Rose,  secretary,  and 
F.  B.  Wooten,  treasurer.  The  Republican  Club 
sent  delegates  East  to  national  conventions  two 
different  years,  J.  D.  Wallingford  representing 
Stanford  at  the  Ann  Arbor  Convention  and  A. 
J.  Brown  at  Louisville.  In  October,  1892, 
Isaac  Trumbo,  through  his  brother,  Howard, 
presented  fifty  white  campaign  uniforms  to  the 
Stanford  Republican  Club  for  the  purpose  of 
organizing  a  marching  club. 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF  FRATERNITIES. 

Among  the  first-year  students  at  Stanford 
were  many  holding  advanced  standing,  who 
had  come  from  other  colleges  and  universities, 
where  some  of  them  had  been  members  of  vari- 
ous fraternities.  Some  of  these  fraternity  repre- 
sentatives almost  immediately  took  steps  to  or- 
ganize chapters  at  Stanford.  Besides  this,  sev- 
eral of  the  fraternities  at  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia took  an  interest  in  getting  chapters 
started  at  their  sister  university.  The  first 
charter  of  all,  dated  October  5,  1891,  was 
granted  to  Zeta  Psi,  Phi  Delta  Theta  coming  a 
close  second  with  a  charter  dated  October  2 2d 
of  the  same  year. 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  129 

Mention  is  made  in  another  article  of  the 
social  and  other  activities  of  the  fraternities  and 
sororities  during  the  early  years.  Therefore  in 
this  chapter,  treating  of  organizations,  will  be 
mentioned  merely  the  names  of  the  earliest  fra- 
ternities and  sororities  at  Stanford,  and  the 
dates  of  their  organization  or  the  granting  of 
charters  to  them. 

A  fuller  account  of  fraternity  life  at  Stanford 
during  the  first  year  is  contained  in  a  very  inter- 
esting article  by  E.  D.  Lewis  (Stanford,  '92), 
which  was  published  in  The  College  Fraternity 
for  November,  1892,  the  same  number  contain- 
ing an  article  on  Leland  Stanford  Jr.  Uni- 
versity, written  by  Professor  M.  W.  Sampson. 

Zeta  Psi,  Charter,  October  5,  1891. 

Phi  Delta  Theta,;  Charter,  October  22, 
1 89 1.  Established  by  Ernest  Dorman  Lewis, 
of  University  of  Indiana,  and  Charles  Andrew 
Fife,  of  University  of  Nebraska. 

Phi  Kappa  Psi.  Established,  November  10, 
1891. 

This  chapter,  which  had  been  established  by 
members  who  had  come  from  the  University  of 
the  Pacific,  was  the  largest  of  any  of  the  frater- 
nities at  Stanford  during  the  first  year  or  two. 


130     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Phi  Gamma  Delta.  Established,  Novem- 
ber 30,  1 89 1. 

Sigma  Chi.  Founded  December  19,  1891. 
Founded  by  members  from  the  University  of 
Indiana  and  at  least  three  other  colleges. 

Alpha  Tau  Omega.  Founded  December 
21,  1891. 

Sigma  Nu.     Founded  November  17,  1891. 

Sigma  Alpha  Epsilon.  Established  March 
5,   1892. 

sororities. 

Kappa  Alpha  Theta.  Established  at  Uni- 
versity of  the  Pacific,  April  4,  1888.  Trans- 
ferred to  Stanford  University,  January  i,  1892. 

At  the  opening  of  Stanford  University  the 
Theta  group  of  girls  left  the  University  of  the 
Pacific,  excepting  two  members,  and  came  to 
Stanford,  the  charter  being  transferred  a  couple 
of  months  later. 

Kappa  Kappa  Gamma.  Charter,  June  10, 
1892. 

Although  the  charter  for  the  Stanford  chap- 
ter of  Kappa  Kappa  Gamma  was  not  granted 
until  the  very  last  day  of  the  first  college  year, 


EARLY  ORGANIZATIONS  131 

the  chapter  had  been  organized  much  earlier  in 

the  year. 

Pi  Beta  Phi.     Established,  October,  1893, 
When  Pi  Beta  Phi  appeared  at  Stanford  it 

was  greeted  by  an  editorial  in  the  Daily  Palo 

Alto  J  of  October  19,  1893,  which,  among  other 

things,  says: 

"Kappa  Alpha  Theta  and  Kappa  Kappa  Gamma 
jointly  extended  to  the  new  sorosis,  the  Pi  Beta  Phi, 
a  hearty  welcome  by  giving  them  a  reception  at  the 
Theta  house.  This  is  indeed  a  praiseworthy  spirit, 
and  displays  a  strong  sense  of  friendship  and  fra- 
ternal courtesy." 

UNORGANIZED  FRATERNITIES. 

There  were  at  Stanford  during  the  first  two 
or  three  years  representatives  of  a  number  of 
national  college  fraternities  which  had  not 
chapters  at  Stanford,  and  for  one  reason  or  an- 
other they  did  not  at  once  establish  chapters  at 
their  new  alma  mater.  These  unorganized  fra- 
ternities, most  of  which  organized  later,  were 
Delta  Kappa  Epsilon,  Psi  Upsilon,  Delta  Up- 
silon,  Chi  Phi,  Theta  Delta  Chi  and  Delta 
Gamma. 


132      THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 


SOPHOMORE  FRATERNITY. 

The  Sophomore  fraternity,  Theta  Nu  Epsi- 
lon,  was  established  during  the  college  year, 
1892-93. 

The  story  of  the  early  organizations  at  Stan- 
ford could  be  much  lengthened  by  the  mention 
of  many  names,  but  such  lists,,  to  those  who 
know  nothing  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Univer- 
sity, would  seem  only  a  matter  of  dry  statistics. 
Yet  to  any  who  had  a  part  in  the  life  of  those 
days  the  mere  mention  of  a  few  of  the  principal 
actors  will  recall  memories  and  history  which 
the  writer  has  not  had  time  or  space  to  develop. 
To  the  writer,  while  preparing  this  article,  it  has 
seemed  like  a  roll  call  of  the  pioneer  classes  of 
the  University.  Some  are  absent;  most  are  con- 
tinuing their  education  in  the  wider  world  into 
which  they  have  graduated.  A  few  have 
flunked;  a  very  few  have  met  with  brilliant  suc- 
cess; the  vast  majority  are  making  the  world  a 
litter  place  in  which  to  live,  by  hard  and  faith- 
ful work, 

"Finding  amplest  recompense 
For  life's  ungarlanded  expense 

In  work  done  squarely  and  unwasted  days." 


"THE  FRENCHMAN.'^ 
By  B.  S.  Allen. 

OROBABLY  the  most  picturesque  inci- 
dent in  connection  with  the  early  his- 
tory of  Stanford  University  is  the  story 
of  the  residence  of  the  renegade  French- 
man, M.  Peter  Coutts,  on  the  romantic 
estate  which  has  since  become  a  part  of 
the  princely  domain  embraced  within  the 
limits  of  the  campus.  Such  a  mass  of  improb- 
able tradition  has  grown  up  concerning  this 
eccentric  character  and  his  strange  career  that  it 
was  with  some  hesitation  that  the  iconoclastic 
methods  of  the  modem  historian  were  applied  to 
an  investigation  of  his  life.  But  instead  of  de- 
tracting from  the  romance  of  the  story  this 
inquiry  has  only  served  to  intensify  it. 

Late  in  the  year  1874  the  small  village  of 
May  field  was  thrown  into  a  flurry  of  excitement 
by  the  arrival  of  a  mysterious  stranger,  whose 
foreign  air  and  eccentricities  of  manner  became 
the  absorbing  topic  for  gossip  in  the  quiet  coun- 
try town.  The  new  arrival,  who  gave  his  name 
as  M.  Peter  Coutts,  was  a  singularly  handsome 
man  above  sixty  years  of  age,  with  snow-white 


134      THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

hair,  but  with  the  elastic  step  of  youth,  and  that 
military  bearing  which  only  comes  from  long 
service  in  a  European  army.  While  ostensibly 
seeking  seclusion,  Coutts  attracted  wide  attention 
in  the  simple  community  by  his  lavish  expendi- 
ture and  peculiar  habits.  He  seemed  burdened 
with  a  surplus  of  money  which  he  was  seeking 
to  rid  himself  of  as  quickly  as  possible.  Not  a 
single  picnic  nor  local  celebration  of  any  kind 
was  arranged  that  the  eccentric  Frenchman  did 
not  insist  on  bearing  the  full  expense.  If  he 
could  find  nothing  else  for  which  to  spend  his 
money,  he  would  offer  large  cash  prizes,  to  be 
awarded  to  the  fleetest  of  foot  among  the  youth 
of  Mayfield. 

Apparently  tiring  of  the  monotonous  life 
which  he  was  living  in  Mayfield,  and  after  a  few 
months  of  residence  there,  Coutts  announced  his 
intention  of  establishing  a  country  home  which 
would  rival  the  famous  baronial  estates  of  Eu- 
rope. Without  losing  any  time  the  energetic 
Frenchman  purchased  1,400  acres  of  land  and 
began  the  construction  of  those  works  which 
have  become  an  enduring  monument  to  the  folly 
of  the  mysterious  exile.  On  this  estate,  which 
has  since  become  a  part  of  the  University  cam- 


*'THE  FRENCHMAN''  135 

pus,  was  a  residence  which  is  still  standing  and 
bears  the  name  of  Escondite  cottage.  Within 
this  cottage  Coutts  installed  his  family,  who  had 
arrived  from  France  shortly  after  the  purchase 
of  the  property.  The  household  consisted  of  an 
invalid  wife,  two  young  children,  a  boy  and  a 
girl,  and  the  governess,  Eugenie  Clogenson,  who 
seems  to  have  been  the  confidant  and  advisor  of 
Coutts  in  his  long  stubborn  fight  with  the  French 
government  for  vindication. 

Extensive  plans  for  the  improvement  of  the 
tract  of  land  were  made.  A  large  force  of  men 
was  set  to  work  planting  the  trees  which  now 
provide  grateful  shade  to  man  and  beast  and  add 
materially  to  the  beauty  of  the  landscape  near 
the  University.  Between  the  two  large  hills  an 
exquisitely  beautiful  little  artificial  lake,  with 
numerous  charming  islets  was  constructed.  This 
little  sheet  of  water  with  its  moss-covered  ce- 
ment walls,  its  picturesque  arched  bridges  and 
quaint  parapets  is  a  marvel  of  engineering 
beauty.  Around  the  base  of  the  highest  hill  a 
graded  road,  shaded  by  graceful  poplars,  was 
built.  On  top  of  these  hills  the  old  French- 
man expected  to  build  twin  chateaux,  which 
would  rival  in  beauty  the  marvelous  structures 


1 3  6     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

of  his  beloved  France.  On  one  hill  the  work 
progressed  as  far  as  the  laying  of  part  of  the 
foundations,  but  the  splendid  dream  of  the 
exile  was  destined  never  to  be  realized,  and  a 
grove  of  gloomy  cypresses  now  grows  on  the 
spot  where  he  expected  to  make  his  final  home. 

In  what  proved  for  a  long  time  to  be  a  vain 
search  for  water,  six  long  tunnels,  converging 
toward  a  common  center,  were  bored  into  the 
hill  to  the  right  of  the  artificial  lake.  Finally 
a  good  flow  of  water  was  struck,  and  this  led  to 
the  erection  of  the  picturesque  brick  tower, 
which  continues  to  excite  comment  and  specula- 
tion as  to  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  built. 
A  series  of  narrow  loopholes  near  the  top  of  the 
structure  gives  credence  to  the  report  that  the 
Frenchman  built  the  tower  as  a  stronghold  to 
which  he  might  retire  if  the  minions  of  his 
outraged  country  should  run  him  to  earth;  but 
whatever  may  have  been  the  ultimate  purpose 
of  the  building,  it  was  actually  devoted  to  the 
prosaic  task  of  supporting  a  tank  which  supplied 
an  abundance  of  pure  water  for  the  use  of  the 
estate. 

Near  his  residence  Coutts  constructed  a  great 
number  of  immense  red  barns,  a  few  of  which 


OF  THE     ^ 

UNIVERSITY 


*'THE  FRENCHMAN''  137 

still  remain  standing.  The  exile  had  not  be- 
come imbued  with  that  truly  American  ideal 
which  sacrifices  future  comfort  for  present  speed, 
and  he  constructed  his  barns  so  solidly  that  the 
ones  which  still  remain  standing  are  models  of 
their  kind.  One  of  the  chief  hobbies  of  Peter 
Coutts  was  a  love  of  fine  stock,  and  no  expense 
was  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  a  gratifica- 
tion of  this  taste.  Agents  were  sent  to  scour 
the  East,  and  in  a  short  time  one  hundred  stalls 
of  the  great  red  barns  were  occupied  by  as  many 
fat  Ayrshire  cattle.  For  each  pair  of  cows  a 
special  groom  was  provided,  and  they  were 
brushed  until  their  sleek  coats  shone  like  satin. 
The  stables  were  kept  scrupulously  clean,  and 
the  discovery  of  any  dirt  by  the  gentleman 
farmer  on  his  daily  rounds  was  followed  by  a 
severe  reprimand  to  the  hapless  employe 
deemed  responsible  for  its  existence.  It  was 
Coutts' s  ambition  to  supply  a  portion  of  San 
Francisco  with  absolutely  pure  milk,  and  with 
this  purpose  in  view  he  contracted  with  several 
milkmen  to  deliver  it  in  that  city,  putting  them 
under  heavy  bonds  not  to  adulterate  it.  The 
persistent  failure  of  the  city  milk  dealers  to  ob- 
serve the  latter  part  of  the  contract  disgusted  the 


138     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Frenchman,  and  he  finally  devoted  the  product 
of  his  fine  cattle  to  the  manufacture  of  butter. 
It  was  a  favorite  theory  of  Coutts  that  music 
had  a  soothing  effect  on  cattle,  and  with  this  in 
view  he  provided  each  cow  with  a  small  silver 
bell  inscribed  with  her  name  and  registered 
number.  As  the  cows  fed,  these  bells  gave  out 
sounds,  which,  while  not  always  in  perfect  time, 
were  not  unmusical  in  tone. 

Next  to  the  fancy  cattle  in  Coutts's  affections 
were  the  fine  horses  which  he  bred.  These  were 
mainly  of  running  stock,  although  he  had  a  few 
trotters.  The  old  training  track,  with  its  stand 
from  which  Coutts  watched  the  performance  of 
his  thoroughbreds,  can  still  be  seen  near  Escon- 
dite  Cottage. 

On  the  present  site  of  the  Inner  Quadrangle 
of  the  University  buildings  were  the  kennels  for 
the  hunting  dogs.  Among  these  was  a  large 
pack  of  beagle  hounds,  the  special  pride  of  the 
old  Frenchman,  who  was  a  devotee  of  hunting. 
Occupying  the  quarters  with  the  dogs  was  a 
great  collection  of  fancy  pigeons  and  poultry. 
An  ancient  French  servitor  had  charge  of  this 
menagerie,  and  occupied  a  charming  little  Swiss 
chalet  built  nearby. 


''THE  FRENCHMAN"  139 

Near  the  Escondite  Cottage  he  built  the  sub- 
stantial brick  structure — once  used  as  the  psy- 
chology laboratory,  and  now  converted  into  a 
residence — for  the  safe-keeping  of  his  valuable 
library  and  as  a  schoolroom  for  his  children. 
The  upper  rooms  of  this  building  were  magnifi- 
cently furnished  in  Oriental  stylei  for  use  as 
lounging  rooms. 

The  more  intimate  details  of  the  personal 
affairs  of  the  eccentric  owner  of  this  strange 
domain  are  shrouded  in  mystery,  and  only  the 
barest  outline  of  the  story  can  be  given.  The 
former  superintendent  of  the  Coutts's  estate,  and 
a  gentleman  who  was  a  close  friend  of  its  owner 
still  reside  in  Mayfield;  but  either  through  lack 
of  knowledge  or  moved  by  loyalty  to  their  dead 
friend,  they  have  told  little  of  the  reasons  which 
led  the  old  Frenchman  to  forsake  the  sheltering 
folds  of  the  tricolor. 

It  is  known,  however,  that  Peter  Coutts  was 
paymaster  of  the  commissary  department  of  the 
armies  of  France  at  the  beginning  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  and  that  simultaneously  with  his 
disappearance  from  France  a  shortage  of 
$5,000,000  was  discovered  in  that  department. 
Peter   Coutts,   the   erstwhile   custodian   of   the 


1 40     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

funds,  had  dropped  completely  from  the  sight 
of  his  associates,  and  diligent  search  by  the 
French  secret  service  was  made  without  success, 
until  three  long  years  had  passed.  Peter  Coutts 
had  disappeared  and  the  money  for  the  payment 
of  the  ragged  soldiers  of  the  Empire  had  gone 
at  the  same  time,  but  the  most  rigid  investiga- 
tion by  the  French  government  failed  to  prove 
absolutely  that  the  two  were  connected. 

Shortly  after  Coutts's  arrival  in  Mayfield  he 
was  joined  by  Eugenie  Clogenson,  the  govern- 
ess, and  during  his  entire  residence  in  this  coun- 
try all  of  the  property  of  the  Frenchman  was  in 
the  name  of  this  remarkable  woman.  Of  strik- 
ing personal  appearance,  the  governess  was  a 
woman  of  superior  attainments  and  rare  execu- 
tive ability.  Coutts  trusted  her  implicitly  and 
from  his  enormous  account  in  the  Anglo-Cali- 
fornia Bank  of  San  Francisco  to  the  Santa  Clara 
estate  everything  was  held  in  trust  for  his  chil- 
dren by  their  faithful  governess.  If  plot  there 
were  to  rob  the  French  government — and  pecu- 
lation there  undoubtedly  was — it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  this  brilliant  woman  seems  to  have 
been  just  the  person  capable  of  executing  such 
a  coup.     There  are  tales  of  Peter  Coutts  tiring 


''THE  FRENCHMAN''  141 


of  his  invalid  wife  and  of  his  love  for  the  beauti- 
ful governess,  but  whatever  their  relations,  it  is 
certain  that  the  strongest  inducements  brought 
to  bear  by  the  French  government  could  not 
affect  her  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  rene- 
gade. 

It  was  not  until  he  had  been  in  this  country 
three  years  that  Peter  Coutts  was  located  by  the 
French  authorities.  With  this  discovery  came 
frequent  visits  by  the  French  consul  of  San 
Francisco  to  Matadero  Ranch,  as  the  French- 
man called  his  place.  The  place  had  become 
famous  for  its  lavish  hospitality,  and  after  par- 
taking of  a  few  dinners  with  its  epicurean  master 
and  drinking  from  his  cellar  wine  of  the  rarest 
old  vintage,  the  consul  grew  cold  in  his  pursuit 
of  the  case. 

Suddenly,  without  explanation,  this  consul 
was  recalled  by  his  home  government,  and  the 
representative  sent  to  take  his  place  became  as 
frequent  a  caller  at  Matadero  Ranch  as  his 
predecessor.  At  this  time  it  is  related  that  the 
old  Frenchman  began  to  show  signs  of  nervous 
trepidation  and  hisi  eccentric  vagaries  became 
more  pronounced.  Suddenly,  in  1880,  after 
confiding  to  the  superintendent  of  the  farm  his 


1 42     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

hope  of  a  speedy  settlement  of  his  trouble  with 
the  French  government,  he  packed  himself  off 
to  London,  where  he  remained  for  a  year.  Dur- 
ing that  period  the  difficulty  with  France  was 
evidently  adjusted  to  the  satisfaction  of  both 
parties,  for  the  exile  visited  his  old  home  before 
his  return  to  America  and  was  not  molested  by 
the  police,  who  had  been  searching  for  him  for 
almost  a  decade.  Just  before  his  return,  the 
manager  of  Matadero  Ranch  received  a  letter 
from  his  employer  containing  the  tidings  that  his 
troubles  with  his  home  government  had  been 
compromised  through  the  combined  efforts  of 
his  brother  and  his  famous  cousin,  the  Baroness 
Burdette-Coutts. 

Returning  to  his  beloved  adopted  home  in 
1 88 1  the  pardoned  exile  resumed  his  life  as  a 
country  gentleman  and  again  began  work  on  the 
structures  which  still  stand  as  mute  witnesses  of 
his  eccentricities. 

In  1882  Coutts  started  for  France  with  his 
family  for  a  visit  to  his  mother  country,  but  he 
was  destined  never  to  return  to  the  sunny  valley 
where  he  expected  to  spend  his  declining  years. 
His  delicate  invalid  wife  had  always  pined  for 
Paris,  and  it  is  thought  that  her  persuasions  In- 


''THE  FRENCHMAN''  143 

duced  Coutts  to  remain  In  France  for  the  remain- 
der of  his  life. 

In  the  fall  of  1882,  through  his  agent,  the 
Anglo-Californian  Bank,  Peter  Coutts  disposed 
of  his  fair  domain  and  all  of  Its  livestock  to 
Senator  Leland  Stanford.  As  a  show  place, 
Matadero  Ranch  had  become  second  only  to 
the  celebrated  Palo  Alto  Stock  Farm,  and  the 
stock  from  the  Coutts  Ranch  added  materially  to 
the  world-wide  fame  of  that  famous  home  of 
princely  horses. 

When  the  news  of  the  sale  became  known 
among  the  employes  of  Matadero  Ranch,  they 
wept  like  children,  and  only  the  personal  assur- 
ances of  Governor  Stanford  could  induce  them 
to  remain  on  the  estate. 

The  final  years  of  the  returned  exile  are 
shrouded  in  mystery.  It  Is  said  that  he  invested 
the  remainder  of  his  fortune  in  a  Parisian  man- 
ufacturing concern,  but  this  has  never  been  veri- 
fied. M.  Peter  Coutts  died  in  1894  In  Mar- 
seilles, France,  and  the  sole  survivor  of  the 
family  is  the  son,  who  resides  somewhere  in 
France. 

The  chief  concern  of  M.  Peter  Coutts  seemed 
to  be  to  spend  as  much  money  as  possible,  and 


1 44     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

the  former  superintendent  of  the  estate  asserts 
that  more  than  $40,000  per  year  was  spent  for 
improvements  on  Matadero  Ranch.  A  large 
force  of  men,  receiving  unusually  high  wages, 
was  kept  constantly  at  work.  It  was  a  hobby 
of  the  old  Frenchman  that  no  deserving  laborer 
should  be  without  work,  and  he  instructed  his 
foreman  to  provide  employment  for  every 
worthy  man  who  applied  for  a  position. 

Coutts  was  a  splendidly  educated  man,  and 
in  his  brick  library  he  had  provided  room  for 
many  rare  books.  Among  these  were  800  Elze- 
virs, which  cost  a  small  fortune,  and  many  old 
classics  of  great  value.  It  was  the  exile's  habit 
to  arise  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  spend 
the  time  from  that  hour  until  six  at  study  in  his 
library. 

Every  day  Coutts  walked  for  many  miles 
over  his  estate,  taking  the  keenest  delight  in 
directing  the  labors  of  a  large  force  of  Chinese, 
who  were  kept  constantly  employed  in  grading 
and  making  roads.  On  his  return  from  these 
walks  he  would  inspect  his  fine  stock,  after  which 
he  would  call  his  men  together  and  outline  for 
them  some  of  his  contemplated  schemes  and 
plans  for  the  improvement  of  the  estate.     His 


''THE  FRENCHMAN''  145 

keen  personal  interest  In  the  welfare  of  his  em- 
ployes caused  them  to  regard  him  with  a  feel- 
ing almost  akin  to  worship. 

Although  liberal  In  his  benefactions  to  all 
sects,  Coutts  was  atheistic,  or  at  the  best  non- 
religious.  In  a  specially  built  stall  he  kept  an 
immense  coal-black  ox,  whom  he  delighted  to 
address  as  "Monsieur  le  Curate.'* 

Except  for  a  small  tintype  discovered  among 
his  son's  personal  effects,  there  is  no  picture  ex- 
tant of  Peter  Coutts.  An  enlargement  of  this 
picture  is  now  In  the  possession  of  a  gentleman 
who  resides  in  Mayfield.  He  had  many  paint- 
ings made  of  his  wife  and  children,  but  he  would 
never  permit  a  picture  to  be  made  of  himself. 
He  was  equally  careful  in  the  written  use  of  his 
name.  All  business  transactions  were  carried 
out  under  the  name  of  the  governess,  and  his 
horses  were  raced  in  the  colors  of  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  ranch. 

Any  attempt  to  personally  investigate  the  mys- 
tery of  his  early  life  was  met  by  a  chilly  rebuff, 
though  Coutts  seemed  to  take  a  subtle  delight  in 
the  curiosity  which  the  events  of  his  past 
aroused.  With  true  Gallic  volubility  he  was 
ready  to  discuss  any  subject  except  the  Franco- 


146     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

Prussian  War.  The  old  gentleman  bitterly  re- 
sented the  unfavorable  comments  which  his 
weird  projects  evoked,  complaining  that  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  spend  the  money  each  year. 
Whatever  may  have  been  M.  Peter  Coutts's 
wrongdoing,  and  crime  of  some  kind  it  undoubt- 
edly was,  it  is  not  for  this  that  he  will  be  longest 
remembered,  but  for  building  the  picturesque 
ruins  which  give  to  the  youthful  University  a 
wealth  of  associations,  usually  acquired  only 
after  long  years  of  existence. 


THE  SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO.* 

Roy  p.  Ballard,  '97. 

^^^^HE  San  Francisquito  Rancho  is  that 
■  ^  J  part  of  our  Palo  Alto  Ranch  lying  in 
^^^^  general  between  Mrs.  Stanford's  resi- 
dence and  the  Quadrangle.  Prior  to  1842  we 
have  what  may  be  called  the  Mexican  land 
grant  period.  California  life  was  then  in  Its 
purity  before  becoming  polluted  by  contact  with 
the  American  population.  In  the  single  decade, 
from  '32  to  '42,  we  find  the  whole  of  the  valley 
from  Mountain  View  to  San  Mateo  reclaimed 
from  the  Santa  Clara  Mission,  divided  Into  pri- 
vate ranchos  and  settled.  In  all  there  were  seven 
grants  ranging  in  size  from  1400  to  35200 
acres.  Of  these  grants  only  one,  the  San  Fran- 
cisquito, Is  entirely  included  within  the  present 
bounds  of  the  campus  and  estate.  It  is  the 
smallest  and  in  many  respects  the  most  interest- 
ing. Let  us  trace,  therefore.  Its  history,  until  Its 
purchase  In  1870  by  Governor  Stanford. 

In  1837,  Antonino  Buelna,  a  resident  of  the 
Pueblo  de  San  Jose,  obtained  permission  from 

♦  Reprinted,  by  permission,  from  the  Sequoia,  Vol.  IV. 


148     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

the  ex-Mission  of  Santa  Clara,  to  occupy  a  place 
called  San  Francisquito.  The  bounds  of  the 
place  are,  as  we  know  them  now,  about  as  fol- 
lows: The  county  road,  the  San  Francisquito 
Creek,  the  road  back  of  Roble  and  the  railroad 
spur  running  up  to  Encina.  Don  Antonino 
seems  to  have  rested  content  with  the  permis- 
sion ;  for,  two  years  later  when  he  asks  for  a  for- 
mal grant,  he  apologizes  for  not  being  satisfied 
with  his  former  possession  on  the  shores  of  the 
bay  inasmuch  as  "he  cannot  remove  from  thence 
the  proceeds  of  any  settlement  or  inhabited  place 
by  reason  of  the  bad  state  of  the  roads. '*  In  '39 
he  built  an  adobe  house  upon  the  ranch,  and  oc- 
cupied it  with  his  wife.  Dona  Concepcion  Val- 
encia, until  his  death.  The  remains  of  the 
house  are  still  standing  on  the  bank  of  the  creek 
near  Cedro  Cottage. 

Below  the\  house,  toward  the  creek,  was  a 
small  plot,  the  house  garden,  the  only  cleared 
spot  on  the  whole  1,400  acres.  On  the  creek  a 
little  further  down  were  three  immense  redwood 
trees,  and  further  still,  near  the  corner  of  the  old 
ranch,  the  second  group  of  redwoods,  the  last 
of  which  we  know  as  Palo  Alto.  The  road  from 
San  Francisco  to  San  Jose  was  what  we  now  call 


SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  149 

the  MIddlefield  Road,  passing  through  Palo 
Alto  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile  below,  i.  e., 
northeast  of  the  railroad.  The  whole  country 
was  thickly  set  with  white  and  live  oaks  larger 
than  most  that  we  see  here  now.  Much  of  the 
land  was  covered  by  a  dense  growth  of  dark  and 
scraggy  underbrush  called  chemisal,  through 
which  only  a  sharp  axe  could  make  a  passage. 
The  Arrastrado  Road,  which  crosses  the  creek 
near  the  house  and  runs  back  of  Roble,  was 
simply  a  pathway  cut  through  this  chemisal  over 
which  the  redwood  logs  were  dragged  from  the 
camps  in  the  mountains  to  the  mills  in  Santa 
Clara.  There  was  not  a  house  nearer  than  that 
of  Martinez,  five  miles  to  the  south,  no  fences, 
no  store  or  druggist  nearer  than  San  Jose,  not  a 
practicing  physician  in  the  State,  and  San  Fran- 
cisco, then  known  as  Yerba  Buena,  had  a  popu- 
lation of  less  than  five  hundred  people.  But  for- 
tunately Buelna  was  very  independent  and  per- 
fectly willing  to  dispense  with  the  conveniences 
of  civilization.  With  a  few  hundred  cattle  run- 
ning over  the  hills,  a  gun,  and  a  garden,  he  was 
well  able  to  support  his  wife  and  himself  com- 
fortably until  his  death  in  1842. 


I50     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Antonino's  widow,  Dona  Concepcion  Val- 
encia, seems  to  have  experienced  no  very  serious 
inconvenience  and  continued  to  occupy  the 
adobe  alone  and  to  *'run  the  ranch"  until  the 
spring  of  1844,  when  Francisco  Rodriguez  came 
from  Monterey  to  share  her  ranch  with  her. 
Rodriguez  was  a  widower,  the  son-in-law  of  ex- 
Governor  Castro,  and  had  seven  children,  most 
of  whom  were  grown  and  living  in  Monterey  or 
Santa  Cruz.  All  the  children  seemed  to  have 
been  opposed  to  this  marriage;  but  Jesus,  the 
eldest  son,  did  not  object  to  his  new  stepmother 
so  seriously  as  to  prevent  his  living  on  the 
same  ranch  with  her  for  ten  years.  Jesus  built 
for  himself  on  the  banks  of  the  creek,  immedi- 
ately below  his  father's  house,  a  second  adobe. 
Peace  seems  to  have  reigned  continually,  and 
Francisco  was  occasionally  visited  by  some  of  his 
children;  the  valley  was  fast  settling  up;  Jose 
Pena  had  settled  with  his  family  on  the  rancho 
immediately  to  the  east,  but  as  he  built  at  its 
eastern  extremity,  near  Mountain  View,  it  is 
probable  that  the  families  were  not  very  neigh- 
borly. The  Martinez  Rancho  in  the  foothills 
was  large  and  well  cared  for.    In  fact,  the  little 


SJN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  151 

block  of  1,400  acres  was  now  completely  sur- 
rounded by  the  larger  ranchos. 

Let  us  note  the  changes  brought  about  In  the 
first  decade  after  the  death  of  the  original 
owner.  In  '5 1  a  wooden  bridge  had  been  thrown 
across  the  San  Franclsqulto  Creek  near  the  old 
MIddlefield  Ford.  Theodore  Robles  had 
bought  Peiia's  ranch  and  erected,  near  Castro- 
ville,  the  finest  adobe  house  in  the  whole  Santa 
Clara  Valley.  The  country  had  become  a  part 
of  the  United  States,  and  we  find  ourselves  at  the 
end  of  the  Mexican  period  and  on  the  eve  of  the 
period  of  American  land-grabbing  or  squatter- 
ism.  Within  the  next  twenty  years  the  true  Cali- 
fornian  becomes  a  thing  of  the  past  and  the 
whole  aspect  of  the  country  is  altered. 

Casa  Nueva,  an  ex-consul  from  Chili,  a  San 
Francisco  lawyer  and  a  rogue  in  general,  began 
in  '52  to  make  occasional  visits  in  this  part  of 
the  valley,  and  being  a  hail  fellow  well  met  and 
usually  well  supplied  with  rum,  he  soon  gained 
the  confidence  of  the  Innocent  Californians  who 
could  neither  write,  read  nor  speak  English.  He 
finally  settled  upon  Rodriguez  as  the  most  un- 
sophisticated of  the  ranch  owners,  and  in  '53 
came  down  to  the  adobe  to  play  an  April  fool 


1 5  2     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

trick.  His  tools  were  a  two-quart  demijohn  of 
whiskey  and  an  innocent  looking  document 
which  he  claimed  was  a  lease.  After  using  the 
former  quite  freely  and  getting  both  Francisco 
and  his  son  gloriously  drunk  he  proceeded  to  use 
the  latter,  which,  however,  instead  of  being  a 
lease,  was  in  reality  a  deed  to  the  whole  ranch. 
Casa  Nueva  was  too  keen  a  lawyer  to  file  the 
deed  and  try  to  eject  Rodriguez  forthwith.  But 
in  the  following  month  Francisco  moved  back  to 
Monterey,  and  the  lawyer,  in  order  to  allay  all 
suspicion,  sent  small  sums  of  money  as  rent  for 
the  first  few  months;  in  all,  less  than  fifty  dollars. 
These  payments  finally  ceased  altogether,  and  in 
spite  of  all  attempts  to  recover,  that  deed  held 
and  the  land  was  lost. 

Although  Casa  Nueva  now  had  the  legal 
title  to  the  land  he  did  not  prevent  Rodriguez 
from  returning  the  next  fall  and  occupying  it 
for  two  years.  Concerning  Rodriguez's  final 
departure  from  the  ranch  the  story  runs  as  fol- 
lows: 

One  evening  during  the  winter  of  '54-'55, 
Woodside  had  been  the  scene  of  true  Spanish 
festivities.  After  the  ball  Rodriguez  got  into 
a  hot  dispute  over  some  event  of  the  evening 


SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  153 

with  another  Californlan,  Geronimo,  with  whom 
he  was  walking  home;  when  they  were  about 
opposite  the  Dennis  Martin  Church  they  came 
to  blows  and  Rodriguez  killed  his  companion. 
The  old  settlers  say  that  until  a  few  years  ago 
the  customary  cross  was  still  standing  by  the 
side  of  the  road  on  the  scene  of  the  murder. 
Rodriguez  was,  of  course,  compelled  to  flee  un- 
til the  excitement  occasioned  by  the  murder  had 
faded  from  men's  minds. 

It  was  just  in  this  period,  from  '51  to  '54, 
that  the  greatest  uncertainty  to  land  titles  in 
California  existed.  Each  squatter  settled  upon 
the  Mexican  ranchos  in  the  hope  that  the  Gov- 
ernment would  declare  them  open  for  settle- 
ment, and  thus  they  would  be  the  first  on  the 
land.  They  each  claimed  a  quarter  section,  but 
their  presence  seems  not  to  have  worried  Rodri- 
guez, who  little  realized  the  value  of  the  land. 

In  '51,  Julian,  a  Frenchman,  built  a  shanty  in 
front  of  the  present  site  of  the  museum,  and  fol- 
lowing in  quick  succession  came  William  Little, 
near  Mrs.  Stanford's  residence,  Thomas  Bevins, 
where  the  cactus  gardens  are  situated,  Jerry 
Eastin  with  his  blacksmith  shop  on  Eucalyptus 
Avenue,  and  his  house  on  the  site  of  President 


154     THE  FIRST  YEAR  AT  STANFORD 

Jordan's  residence,  and  Sandy  Wilson,  who  oc- 
cupied a  house  near  the  original  Buelna  abode. 
You  ask  what  sort  of  men  they  were?  That  is 
hard  to  answer,  for  they  were  not  a  class  of  pro- 
fessional land-jumpers.  Some  were  honest  men, 
come,  no  doubt,  to  establish  homes  and  farm 
their  land  or  ply  their  trade;  others  were  of  that 
indifferent  sort  who  were  willing  to  live  any- 
where and  in  any  way  so  long  as  they  can  live  at 
all.  Of  their  lives  and  personalities  we  know 
but  little.  Bevins  had  been  a  printer  in  New 
York;  he  settled  with  his  wife  on  the  ranch, 
clearing  a  plot  of  about  forty  acres,  where  the 
vineyard  now  is,  and  sowing  it  in  wheat.  After 
eight  years  of  ranching  he  sold  out  and  went  to 
work  on  the  San  Francisco  Bulletin.  Jerry 
Eastin,  the  blacksmith,  was  a  young  married 
man,  short  and  light,  who  thought  more  of  him- 
self than  anyone  thought  of  him.  Besides  his 
blacksmithing  he  farmed  a  portion  of  his  land 
on  shares  with  Mr.  La  Piere  of  Mayfield. 

Of  all  the  squatters,  perhaps,  the  most  inter- 
esting is  Mr.  Thomas  Wilson,  more  familiarly 
known  as  Sandy  Wilson.  He  was  a  tall,  well- 
built  Virginian.  In  his  first  years  upon  the 
ranch  he  occupied  a  shanty  in  the  edge  of  Rodri- 


SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  155 

guez's  clearing,  but  when  the  latter  made  his 
sudden  disappearance,  in  '55,  he  moved  into  the 
adobe.  The  pioneers  tell  a  story  concerning 
him  which  well  Illustrates  his  character.  Casa 
Nueva,  wishing  to  keep  the  fact  that  he  owned 
the  land  distinctly  before  the  squatters*  minds, 
used  to  visit  the  ranch  occasionally  with  three  or 
four  Californians,  all  on  horseback,  and  thus, 
without  dismounting,  run  the  bounds  of  his  land 
with  a  chain.  Sandy  remonstrated  with  him 
several  times  for  dragging  this  chain  through 
his  wheatfield.  Casa  Nueva  paid  no  heed  to  his 
warnings  and  the  next  time  the  offense  was  re- 
peated Wilson  was  very  justly  angry.  He  ran 
out,  pulled  Casa  Nueva  from  his  horse  and  gave 
him  a  severe  thrashing.  The  next  day  Sheriff 
Murphy  from  San  Jose  came  In  quest  of  Sandy; 
riding  up  the  Arrastrado  or  logging  road  to- 
ward the  house,  he  took  a  path  through  the 
chemisal.  Now  the  sheriff  did  not  know  Sandy, 
and  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  this  chemisal 
he  met  him  on  foot;  stopping  him,  he  asked 
where  Mr.  Thomas  Wilson  lived  and  whether 
he  was  at  home.  Mr.  Thomas  Wilson  appre- 
ciated the  situation,  and  returning  with  the 
sheriff  to  the  edge  of  the  clearing  he  pointed  out 


1 5  6     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

the  house  and  told  him  that  he  had  been  there 
about  ten  minutes  before  and  that  Wilson  was 
there  then.  Sheriff  Murphy  thanked  him  and 
rode  off.  Sandy  replied  that  he  was  glad  to  give 
him  the  information  and  took  to  the  chemisal, 
but  this  time  he  did  not  stay  on  the  path.  At 
about  dusk  Sandy  appeared  at  the  edge  of  the 
wood  to  reconnoitre.  He  walked  quietly  up  to 
the  door  of  the  adobe  and  knocked;  receiving 
no  response  he  went  away  and  in  half  an  hour 
came  and  knocked  again  and  called  his  own 
name  several  times  to  be  sure  no  one  was  lying 
In  wait  for  him.  Thus  he  avoided  the  law  for 
several  days,  but  finally  growing  tired,  he  gave 
up,  paid  his  fine  and  was  released. 

In  '6 1  a  company  of  California  volunteers 
was  formed  in  the  valley  to  be  sent  to  the  seat 
of  war.  Sandy's  patriotism  got  the  better  of 
him  and  he  enlisted  as  second  lieutenant.  He 
had  previously  disposed  of  most  of  his  land,  sell- 
ing a  portion  to  John  W.  Lockers,  who  suc- 
ceeded him  in  the  old  adobe,  being  its  last  oc- 
cupant. The  lower  adobe  both  Wilson  and 
Lockers  used  for  a  stable.  Lockers  had  only 
occupied  the  ranch  a  year  when  the  great  flood 
of  the  spring  of  '62  washed  away  his  stable,  the 


SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  157 

three  tall  redwoods  and  a  considerable  portion 
of  his  garden.  This  flood  is  a  memorable  event 
in  the  history  of  the  valley,  but  it  is  the  high 
water  in  the  San  Francisquito  Creek  alone  in 
which  we  are  interested.  The  new  railroad  and 
county  road  bridges  were  both  swept  away. 
There  was  a  large  island  in  the  creek  near 
Lockers'  house,  covered  by  a  heavy  undergrowth 
and  by  several  exceptionally  large  alder  trees; 
this  was  moved  bodily  down  the  stream  and 
gradually  broken  up.  Mr.  Little's  house  stood 
in  three  feet  of  water  and  Lockers'  garden  was 
carefully  distributed  to  the  depth  of  six  inches 
over  Bevins'  field  of  barley,  which  was  on  the 
site  of  the  vineyard. 

During  the  decade,  from  '52  to  '62,  we  find 
the  ranch  being  continually  divided,  re-divided 
and  sold,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  land 
which  In  1852  was  owned  by  one  man  had  been 
claimed  or  owned  by  at  least  twenty  persons.  It 
was  during  the  latter  part  of  the  period  that  the 
systematic  clearing  of  the  land  began.  We  find 
men  obtaining  permission  from  the  ranchers  to 
clear  the  land  for  the  timber.  Accordingly  large 
charcoal  ovens  sprang  up  all  over  the  campus. 
The  scattered  oaks  which  we  admire  so  much 


1 5  8     THE  FIRS  T  YEAR  AT  S  TAN  FORD 

today  give  but  a  faint  idea  of  the  fine  groves  that 
then  covered  the  ranch.  This  charcoal  was 
sacked  and  shipped  from  the  mouth  of  the  San 
Francisquito  Creek  on  barges  to  San  Francisco. 
Thus  the  ranch  ceased  to  be  a  collection  of  iso- 
lated clearings  and  assumed  an  appearance  more 
nearly  like  that  which  it  had  when  our  Uni- 
versity was  founded. 

The  period  of  disintegration  past,  we  come  to 
the  far  shorter  period  of  reconstruction  when 
one  man  was  again  to  own  the  whole  ranch. 
Early  in  the  year  1863  George  Gordon,  a 
wealthy  San  Francisco  business  man,  fixed  upon 
this  ranch  as  his  summer  home.  He  first  bought 
all  of  Little's  land,  then  that  of  Wilson  and 
others,  and  finally  in  '65  bought  the  title  to  the 
whole  ranch  from  one  of  Buelna's  heirs  for 
$250.  Mr.  Gordon  was  probably  a  fine  business 
man,  and  certainly  good-hearted  and  generous, 
but  he  was  no  farmer.  He  laid  out  several  fine 
drives,  including  Eucalyptus  Avenue,  and  built 
a  very  respectable  house  and  stables.  He  seems 
to  have  been  rather  eccentric  in  his  methods  of 
managing  men.  He  was  his  own  architect,  and 
when  the  carpenters  were  laying  the  second 
floor  of  the  house  he  remarked  that  he  thought 


SAN  FRANCISQUITO  RANCHO  159 

the  ceiling  would  be  too  low,  but  he  would  see 
when  it  was  finished.  That  evening,  returning 
from  San  Francisco,  he  decided  that  it  did  not 
suit  him  and  had  it  all  taken  out  and  changed,  re- 
gardless of  cost.  Mr.  Gordon  only  lived  to 
enjoy  his  country  home  for  about  five  years, 
dying  in  San  Francisco,  May  22,  1869.  His 
house,  very  much  altered  and  enlarged,  is  the 
present  "Stanford  Residence."  Senator  Stanford 
bought  it  the  following  year  from  Mr.  Gordon's 
executors,  and  thus  was  laid  the  foundation  of 
what  is  known  as  the  Palo  Alto  Ranch,  consist- 
ing of  about  8900  acres. 

Thus  we  have  traced  the  growth  of  the 
little  nucleus  of  acres  from  a  barren  waste  in 
1830  to  a  crude  Mexican  grant  in  1840,  to  a 
better  developed,  confirmed  grant,  subject  to  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  in  1850,  to  a  collection 
of  unconfirmed  squatter  holdings  with  a  dozen 
or  more  claimants  in  i860,  to  a  modest  country 
villa  owned  by  a  San  Francisco  business  man  in 
1870,  to  a  more  pretentious  country  residence 
owned  by  Senator  Stanford  in  1880,  and  lastly 
to  the  campus  of  one  of  the  greatest  educational 
institutions  of  the  world  in  1890. 


THIS  volume  of  sketches  has  been  collected  and 
published   under    the    direction    of  the   following 
Committee  of  the  Stanford  English  Club : 

SiliCe  minh0Ot  l&imball.  Ctiairman 

Samuel  Stoa^e  feetoarti.  3|t. 
Sittbnt  WiaMtotr^  ifletcj^et 

The  Committee  wishes  to  thank  the  contributors  of  the 
various  chapters  in  the  foregoing  volume,  and  to  make  grate- 
ful acknowledgments  to  many  others  who  have  helped  them 
materially,  notably  Miss  Lucy  AUabach,  of  the  Class  of  1 895. 


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